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High-risk pregnancies are those concurrent disorders, pregnancy-related complications, or external factors that endanger the health of the woman and the fetus. Nurses must have the awareness regarding these diseases so they can act swiftly during these emergencies.
How to Identify One
- More than one factor can contribute to the classification of a high-risk pregnancy.
- Women who already have a disorder before the pregnancy is termed to have a greater than normal risk.
- The factors that categorize the woman’s pregnancy as high risk were classified into minimal, moderate, or extensive.
- Psychological, social, and physical factors also break down the factors that categorize a high-risk pregnancy.
Psychological Factors
- History of drug dependence
- History of intimate partner abuse
- History of mental illness
- Loss of support person
- Poor acceptance of pregnancy
- Severely frightened by labor and birth experience
- Inability to participate because of anesthesia
- Illness in newborn
Social Factors
- Occupation involving handling of toxic materials
- Environmental contaminants
- Isolated
- Low economic level
- Poor access to transportation
- Poor housing
- Refusal or neglected prenatal care
- Disruptive family incident
- Conception less than one year after last pregnancy
- Lack of support person
- Inadequate home for infant care
- Lack of access to continued health care
Physical Factors
- Pelvic inadequacy or misshape
- Uterine incompetency, position or structure
- Secondary major illness
- Poor gynecologic or obstetric history
- Obesity
- Underweight
- PID
- Potential of blood incompatibility
- Younger than 18 years old and older than 35 years old
- Cigarette smoker
- Substance abuser
- Subject to trauma
- Bleeding disruption
- Gestational diabetes
- Nutritional deficiency
- Infection
- Hemorrhage
- Cephalopelvic disproportion
- Retained placenta
High-Risk Pregnancy
Please follow the links below:
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- Labor Complications
- The Pregnant Woman with Special Needs
- The Pregnant Woman with Physical and Mental Challenges
- Musculoskeletal Disorders and Mental Illness in Pregnancy
- Trauma in Pregnancy
- Respiratory and Endocrine Disorders in Pregnancy
- Neurologic Disorders in Pregnancy
- Gastrointestinal & Renal Diseases in Pregnancy
- Cardiovascular & Hematologic Diseases in Pregnancy
- Sudden Pregnancy Complications
High-risk pregnancy may not happen in most childbearing women, yet no one will be able to predict the comings and goings of these diseases. Early education for couples who want to get pregnant must be enforced to be certain that the mother and the baby would have a safe pregnancy journey all throughout.
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