One of the most natural things in the world is pregnancy and childbirth. Women have done it for eons, and these days, the majority of women go through the process without incident.
On the other hand, there are women who have difficulties as their pregnancies progress, and childbirth can prove challenging and even frightening. In some cases, doctors have little to no forewarning that something could go wrong. In other cases, they do know or should have known. Should your doctors have taken your pregnancy more seriously and considered it high risk?
Common factors that make a pregnancy high risk
Even if the possibility of you having complications doesn’t seem like an immediate issue, certain factors increase the likelihood they could happen, and your doctor needs to monitor you and your baby more closely. Some of the common factors that could indicate a high-risk pregnancy include the following:
- You suffer from a chronic medical condition, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
- You suffer from problems with your heart, kidneys or lungs.
- You had complications in a prior pregnancy.
- Your family history includes genetic disorders that affect pregnancy.
- You are under the age of 17 or over the age of 35.
- You have an autoimmune disease.
- You have chronic infections.
- You previously miscarried.
- You develop preeclampsia or gestational diabetes during your pregnancy.
- You are carrying more than one baby.
Just because you fit into one or more of these categories does not mean that your pregnancy will not be normal. It only means that your doctor needs to take extra care and time with you to make sure your and your baby’s lives are not unnecessarily in jeopardy.
What could happen in a high-risk pregnancy?
If you do exhibit factors that should make your pregnancy high risk, your doctor should protect you from the following:
- You could go into premature labor, which means before your 37th week of pregnancy.
- The placenta could fall down over your cervix, called placenta previa. You could bleed and/or require a C-section to reduce the risk to you and your baby.
- You could develop preeclampsia or gestational diabetes.
- Your unborn child could have issues developing properly.
These are just some of the issues that could arise during a high-risk pregnancy that could become life-threatening. If your doctor fails to take certain precautions, you and/or your child could suffer irreparable harm. If that happens, your joy could quickly turn to despair. If your doctor failed to recognize your pregnancy as high risk when it should have been, you could have cause to pursue compensation for the harm done to you and your child.