We have just arrived at the 15 week point and are now on the prowl for high blood pressure or hyper tension caused by pregnancy, or experienced during pregnancy. Weve gotten to this point without any symptoms or noticeable high blood pressure, but we were given a crash course on it at the doctors office today.
To constantly monitor your BP in your own home without any doctors recommendation for any other reason than you have a serious issue with paying too much attention to yourself is a bit on the creepy and obsessive side, and is completely unnecessary. Yet keeping an eye on possible symptoms or signs of pre-eclamptic toxemia (PET) is easy and a very small part of your everyday well being check.
Some easy to notice signs of PET are constant headache, odd bouts of giddiness, pain in the upper part of the abdomen, different types of visible eye symptoms and a clear difference in urine volume. Extreme weight gain can also be a symptom of toxemia, and the accompanying breathless feeling and palpitations as well. These are simple to observe and not something a single doctor visit could determine, but that isnt any grounds not to have regular obstetrician visits scheduled.
Every time you see the doctor you are checked for protein content in the urine and your blood pressure is documented, and those planned tests are taken often enough to create a baseline number to check off of by the time you reach your 18th to 20th week. If you merely show up at a doctors office on the 18th week and say you have high blood pressure, you may in fact, just have slightly elevated levels based on nationwide statistics. While if you have had consistent visits the obstetrician can figure out if you are in fact elevated or just fine based on your own specific history.
Your appointments are sometimes irritating and obtrusive, but entirely essential to achieve a full mapping of how your body is moving ahead through the pregnancy. So just go to your appointments. Im the husband and I go every time just to keep myself abreast of the breast size inflation, any changes in the progress of the pregnancy, and to learn about any potential assistance that I may be to a pregnant wifey carrying twins that will eventually do my bidding. Yes, youre correct in assuming that my twin children will perform gymnastic feats on street corners for gold doubloons. Have a sense of humor.
That sense of humor will help out severely if you indeed are one of those women who suffer from toxemia of pregnancy or pregnancy induced hypertension because bed rest can be tremendously stressful by in fact forcing you to not feel stressed! I liken it to trying not to think about earthworms in pasta sauce.
YOURE THINKING ABOUT EARTHWORMS IN PASTA SAUCE ARENT YOU!
Bed rest is often depicted as 2 hours during the day where you are horizontal and lying on your left side if possible. This also includes 8 hours of taking it easy at night in the same position.
In addition to the super happy fun time known as bed rest, there are sometimes diet restrictions, salt limitations, and scheduled fetal monitoring set up by the treating obstetrician. We experienced regular fetal monitoring during our first pregnancy and we would drive the 45 minutes to the office and listen to our sons heartbeat and watch the little needle draw the lines on the chart once a week. While that regular trip to the high risk OB couldve been seen as a stressor, we enjoyed sitting and hearing our son dancing and grooving in the room alongside us.
Whether your doctor is sure that your toxemia will work its way out with rest and relaxation or that you need to be hospitalized, you may come to the decision of determining whether or not to take high blood pressure medications. If that day comes, please ask all of the right questions and make sure there will be no lasting effects to your baby, babies or you. The last thing you want to do is trade proper rest for another drug, because the statistics are safe in assuming that if you take ONE drug, youll quickly be on another drug just to balance the side effects of the first drug.
What our doctor group told us about PET was to the point: dont push it. If you notice changes, take a few days of FORCED REST and regroup. If you are still worried, the doctors are there to help and being a freak or overprotective of your fetus is more than okay. Better safe than anything other than safe.
Now go stretch, because pretty soon my twins are going to be balancing on fire hydrants, leaping over fire trucks and eventually in the pictures folder on your cell phone. TAH DAH!
To constantly monitor your BP in your own home without any doctors recommendation for any other reason than you have a serious issue with paying too much attention to yourself is a bit on the creepy and obsessive side, and is completely unnecessary. Yet keeping an eye on possible symptoms or signs of pre-eclamptic toxemia (PET) is easy and a very small part of your everyday well being check.
Some easy to notice signs of PET are constant headache, odd bouts of giddiness, pain in the upper part of the abdomen, different types of visible eye symptoms and a clear difference in urine volume. Extreme weight gain can also be a symptom of toxemia, and the accompanying breathless feeling and palpitations as well. These are simple to observe and not something a single doctor visit could determine, but that isnt any grounds not to have regular obstetrician visits scheduled.
Every time you see the doctor you are checked for protein content in the urine and your blood pressure is documented, and those planned tests are taken often enough to create a baseline number to check off of by the time you reach your 18th to 20th week. If you merely show up at a doctors office on the 18th week and say you have high blood pressure, you may in fact, just have slightly elevated levels based on nationwide statistics. While if you have had consistent visits the obstetrician can figure out if you are in fact elevated or just fine based on your own specific history.
Your appointments are sometimes irritating and obtrusive, but entirely essential to achieve a full mapping of how your body is moving ahead through the pregnancy. So just go to your appointments. Im the husband and I go every time just to keep myself abreast of the breast size inflation, any changes in the progress of the pregnancy, and to learn about any potential assistance that I may be to a pregnant wifey carrying twins that will eventually do my bidding. Yes, youre correct in assuming that my twin children will perform gymnastic feats on street corners for gold doubloons. Have a sense of humor.
That sense of humor will help out severely if you indeed are one of those women who suffer from toxemia of pregnancy or pregnancy induced hypertension because bed rest can be tremendously stressful by in fact forcing you to not feel stressed! I liken it to trying not to think about earthworms in pasta sauce.
YOURE THINKING ABOUT EARTHWORMS IN PASTA SAUCE ARENT YOU!
Bed rest is often depicted as 2 hours during the day where you are horizontal and lying on your left side if possible. This also includes 8 hours of taking it easy at night in the same position.
In addition to the super happy fun time known as bed rest, there are sometimes diet restrictions, salt limitations, and scheduled fetal monitoring set up by the treating obstetrician. We experienced regular fetal monitoring during our first pregnancy and we would drive the 45 minutes to the office and listen to our sons heartbeat and watch the little needle draw the lines on the chart once a week. While that regular trip to the high risk OB couldve been seen as a stressor, we enjoyed sitting and hearing our son dancing and grooving in the room alongside us.
Whether your doctor is sure that your toxemia will work its way out with rest and relaxation or that you need to be hospitalized, you may come to the decision of determining whether or not to take high blood pressure medications. If that day comes, please ask all of the right questions and make sure there will be no lasting effects to your baby, babies or you. The last thing you want to do is trade proper rest for another drug, because the statistics are safe in assuming that if you take ONE drug, youll quickly be on another drug just to balance the side effects of the first drug.
What our doctor group told us about PET was to the point: dont push it. If you notice changes, take a few days of FORCED REST and regroup. If you are still worried, the doctors are there to help and being a freak or overprotective of your fetus is more than okay. Better safe than anything other than safe.
Now go stretch, because pretty soon my twins are going to be balancing on fire hydrants, leaping over fire trucks and eventually in the pictures folder on your cell phone. TAH DAH!
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