When can you Determine Multiple Babies in Pregnancy?
Written on December 28, 2007 by steven
Small For Dates
After reviewing the date of your last period and your expected date of delivery, both your heights, and scans of the baby, your pregnancy may be pronounced small for dates. Don’t worry, but doctors will keep an eye on you by.
- Giving you scans every two weeks for a while to ensure all is well and to check the placenta.
- Checking on the baby’s heart rate for any sign of strain.
- Discussing with you the possibility of inducing your baby or delivering by cesarean, to spare the baby having to go through a vaginal delivery.
Preeclampsia
This is a potentially serious condition that can affect one in ten women, especially first time mothers and women carrying more than one baby. It can start at any time in the second half. It’s not known precisely what causes it, but it tends to run in families.
How it affects you
There are no symptoms, but raised blood pressure and protein in the urine may signal its presence. It affects the placenta, so the baby may grow more slowly than normal. The pregnancy can’t be restored to normal, but delivery of the baby and placenta ends the disease. Delivery may be arranged before serious complications arise. For most mothers, delivery reverses all the effects.
Although the majority of pregnancies proceed with out incident, occasionally things don’t go according to plan. When something unexpected happens or there’s cause for concern at your prenatal checkup, you’re both going to feel extremely concerned about it, especially if all has gone well up to this point. Until now you may have been confident that all would be straight for ward. Now, suddenly, the pregnancy seems to be in question, and you may feel apprehensive and confused. It helps enormously to face what’s ahead together and to get as much information as you can.
Causes For Concern
Some worrisome development, like vaginal bleeding, may strike out of the blue; a small for dates baby or high blood pressure may be diagnosed at a routine prenatal check. What ever the cause for concern, your health care provider should give you a full explanation.
Vaginal Bleeding
Never ignore vaginal bleeding at any stage of your pregnancy. Although it’s always troubling, close medical supervision can help avoid serious problems. Bleeding in the first three months. Bleeding in early pregnancy doesn’t mean you’ll lose your baby. You may not vet have high enough hormone levels to subdue your periods. You may have a condition such as cervical erosion or polyps, neither of which are likely to interfere with your pregnancy. Contact your doctor or hospital as soon as possible so you can be referred for a scan, if the heart is bearing well, bleeding will probably stop and the pregnancy will continue normally. You’ll need to rest and fore go sex for a while. Bleeding in later pregnancy. It’s rare to bleed late in pregnancy, but it’s serious, since it may indicate problems with the placenta, such as placenta previa or approaching placental abruption. Placenta previa means the placenta is positioned in the lower parr of the womb, possibly across the cervix. Placental abruption means that the placenta is beginning to separate from the uterine wall. Both conditions can be confirmed by ultrasound scanning, and hospital admission for observation and subsequent cesarean delivery will be necessary.
Multiple pregnancy
Carrying more than one baby will undoubtedly mean you have more professional attention and more prenatal appointments during your pregnancy, The diagnosis of twins, triplets, or more will be confirmed with an ultrasound scan, and the news may take a lot of getting used to, but there’s a lot of help and support for you both.
Nausea
Multiple pregnancies often cause severe nausea, even vomiting, in the first three months. Eat little and often, and drink plenty of fluids drinks containing glucose or glucose tablets may boost energy levels if you feel too sick to get calories from food
Increasing size
You get bigger faster than a mother with one baby because, as well as carrying two babies, you produce more amniotic fluid.
Backache
Be careful about posture and avoid carrying or lifting heavy weights, because the additional levels of pregnancy hormones mean your pelvic ligaments can soften and stretch, and become painful.
Fatigue
You’ll tire very easily, and this may be made worse by anemia. Rest, eat meat, and take folic acid and iron supplements.
Indigestion
This may be worse than in a single pregnancy because your stomach is squashed against your diaphragm, Have nourishing drinks and soups and eat frequent small meals.
Pregnancy And Preexisting Medical Conditions
Any existing medical condition means that your pregnancy will be carefully monitored. Medical conditions like asthma, epilepsy, heart disease, or kidney disease don’t in them selves make pregnancy and labor difficult. If you take care of your self, have meticulous prenatal care, and are prepared for the possibility of hospitalization in the last ten weeks of pregnancy, chances are you’ll have a normal birth.
Diabetes
Sugar a sign, but not proof, of diabetes may appear in your urine at any time in pregnancy. The most common reason for this is a change in the way the kidney handles sugar in pregnancy, no treatment is needed. Latent diabetes can do the same thing and can be controlled with diet alone, though you’ll be checked more frequently at the prenatal clinic. Preexisting diabetes needs strict supervision because your insulin needs may change. Babies of diabetic mothers tend to be large so you may be induced early or you may need to have a cesarean section.
Losing Your Baby
No one can imagine the grief of losing a baby. Seek counseling so that you can grieve fully and come to terms with your loss.
Early miscarriage
A miscarriage in the first few weeks is more common than you might think in fact, one in three of first pregnancies. It usually happens because there was something amiss with the fetus, or perhaps it had not implanted correctly. Early miscarriage may not be accompanied by much pain, although you may suffer severe period like cramps. You’ll both feel let down, and a woman has to deal with sudden hormonal changes that can make her very emotional.
Late miscarriage
This occurs between 13 and 24 weeks, usually because of placental problems or a weakened cervix that opens due to the weight of the growing fetus. It can also be the result of infection. You have a mini labor to expel the fetus with what ever pain relief you choose.
Stillbirth
Losing your baby at or close to full term is very hard to bear, but nowadays you’ll be given a chance to hold and name your baby and to have a funeral.
Dealing with your loss
Your distress needs careful handling: it’s a bereavement that may be complicated by feelings of guilt and blame. Talk about your feelings to each other and to your doctor, ask her to explain the reasons for your loss, but accept that no one may know exactly why your baby died. Above all, look forward to the future most couples who have lost a baby go on to become proud parents of healthy babies.
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