Essential Factors Of Maternal Health During Pregnancy
The bond between a mother and a newborn baby is so pure. As we know, a happy mother gives birth to a happy child. Therefore, all women should go through prenatal and postnatal care for good health during the pregnancy.
For such care, a mother should visit professional and experienced Melbourne obstetricians for check-ups. They will diagnose, treat, and provide general care to women.
Talking about pregnant women, we will discuss the factors affecting maternal health.
Key Elements To Consider In Pregnancy
In this section, we define several factors to be considered during pregnancy. The categorization is done into; Teenage Pregnancy, Poor Health Conditions, and Emotional Factors.
Teenage Pregnancy
Mothers under age 15 show complications of pregnancy and delivery. Such as low birth weight of a child, stillbirth, and premature babies. The reason behind such problems in teenagers is due to not enough knowledge of prenatal checkups.
Prenatal care makes sure a woman avoids unhealthy food, drinks a lot of water, doesn’t smoke, keeps moving, etc. About these measures, teenage girls are unaware of.
Also, the girls lack awareness about the pregnancy phase. In some cases, girls are single teen parents and do not have proper knowledge about pregnancy. Sometimes, they also lack parental supervision. Such problems create complications.
Consequently, prenatal checkups help to prevent complications in a teenager. Also, teenagers must know the important measures to be taken to protect the baby. For that, they can get help from OB/GYN.
Poor Health Conditions
A pregnant mother must go for a regular checkup to ensure good health conditions. Visiting an obstetrician advises routine tests to maintain the mentioned health conditions below.
High Blood Pressure
It occurs when the force of blood pushing through your vessels is constantly too high. Due to high blood pressure, there is stress in the walls of the heart and the kidneys. It leads to heart attacks, kidney problems, and strokes.
High blood pressure increases the risk of premature birth, C-section delivery, and placental abruptions. In premature delivery, the baby gains weight slowly and faces problems in maintaining a normal body temperature.
In C-section, the delivery is through incisions on the abdomen. Vaginal delivery is not performed as it can cause risks to the mother as well as the baby.
In placental abruption, the supply of oxygen and nutrients to a baby stops. It leads to a heavy flow of blood which would need early delivery.
These problems cause a great impact on mothers’ health. So, keeping in mind, every mother needs to maintain normal blood pressure.
Diabetes During Pregnancy
When a woman suffers from diabetes during pregnancy, there is an increase in blood sugar levels. In addition, such problems cause C-section birth and diabetes problems in the future.
It also causes problems in a baby like premature birth, excessive weight of a baby. Gaining excessive weight during pregnancy is also another factor causing diabetes.
Therefore, a pregnant mother should visit a specialist once a month for a check-up to maintain her blood sugar level. Safety measures like eating healthy food, being active all day, maintaining a good healthy weight, etc. can be initiated.
Emotional Factors
Taking care of health, the emotional problems mentioned below should be considered and cured as soon as possible.
Stress
Being pregnant can make a woman stressed and uneasy. This is completely normal until its level is so high.
Stress comes from having an unplanned pregnancy, miscarriage, or the death of a baby. Also, women think about dealing with the physical changes occurring during pregnancy.
In some cases, a mother is a single parent and wonders how she will cope or experience relationship difficulties. Sometimes she faces practical challenges such as financial difficulties, moving a house, or job changes.
As a result, to run away from these situations women start smoking, drinking alcohol. It can cause a great effect on a mother and baby’s health too.
Depression
It is a mental illness that badly affects how you feel, how you act, and the way you think. There is a feeling of sadness, hopelessness, and loss of interest in activities.
1 out of 5 women suffers from depression during pregnancy. Also, the women already suffering are more likely to have depression after the pregnancy.
Outcomes of depression are miscarriages, giving birth to a small size baby, deliveries of babies before the due date.
About 15% of pregnant women take anti-anxiety drugs to get relief from this mental illness. Taking certain drugs results, an increase in the number of defective newborn cases. Therefore, they should take the advice of a doctor before consuming these drugs.
Conclusion
A Pregnant woman should be responsible for her and a baby’s health. She should be aware of the precautions to avoid complications and consequences of negligence in her pregnancy.
With proper routine checkups, the doctor can diagnose the problem and prevent any kind of risks before it is too late.
As it is rightly said, a healthy child comes from a healthy mother. Therefore, a woman must visit the doctors during the pregnancy, as she should be more conscious about her health.