How to detect preeclampsia in pregnancy?

How to prevent it?

Preeclampsia is a disease that only appears in pregnancy and can be serious for the breast and baby. Symptoms are high blood pressure, swelling, and elimination of protein in the urine or proteinuria. Preventing preeclampsia is not easy, but a pregnant woman can follow some tips to control it. It is considered dangerous since pre-eclampsia can cause the placenta to not get enough blood from the mother. There is a closure of the blood vessels of the uterus that provide the baby with oxygen and nutrients necessary for its growth. This means that the newborn is underweight or has delayed intrauterine growth. This ailment appears in the second half of pregnancy, starting at week 20 and it is not yet known why some women suffer from this disease.

The women who are most at risk of suffering from pre-eclampsia are those who…

● Are first-time pregnant women

● They have a history of pre-eclampsia in their family

● They are in an extreme age group, over 40 years old. Or on the contrary, a teenager.

● If they suffer from kidney problems

● If they have suffered from preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy

The cause of why this condition occurs is still unclear. It is not known why the blood vessels that nourish the placenta are disturbed. Some theories say that it is due to an alteration of the mother’s immune system that reacts against foreign tissues such as the fetus, or that from the beginning of pregnancy the blood vessels that are going to be in charge of sending blood from the mother to the placenta are formed with some defect or do not work well.

How can this condition be diagnosed?

When you go to appointments with your gynecologist or midwife, your blood pressure will be taken. In this way you can detect if it is high or not. In addition, the pregnant woman has symptoms such as having protein in the urine, low platelets, impaired liver function, kidney problems, fluids in the lungs and headaches. In most of the time, women with preeclampsia deliver healthy babies, if this is caught early it can be controlled.

How can preeclampsia be controlled?

Giving birth is undoubtedly the best treatment, since once the baby is born, the symptoms disappear. Sometimes it is suggested to wait for the baby to reach a level of development where it will not do him any harm if he is born before 9 months. Either by induction of labor or cesarean section. Meanwhile, the breast can be treated with certain medications and complete rest. In certain cases, the breast is hospitalized for better control of her symptoms, especially when the environment in which she lives does not guarantee the necessary rest for her improvement.

When a woman is at risk for preeclampsia, careful weight control plus a healthy diet rich in calcium is recommended. If you present any of these symptoms, do not hesitate to go to the emergency room with the doctor who takes your control.