Pregnancy complications are conditions, whether pre-existing or pregnancy induce, that make pregnancy complicated or high risk. Most pregnancy complications come from conditions that the woman had before the pregnancy occurred. And some conditions arise as a result of the pregnancy. The good news is that despite that problem of having to deal with complications due to pre-existing medical condition such as high blood pressure or due to pregnancy induced complications, most women stand a better chance of delivering healthy babies.
Some non-pregnancy related factors that can complicate a pregnancy are age and pre-existing medical conditions. Depending on the age, pregnant women aged 35 years and above are considered to be in advanced maternal age and at high risk. At these ages, getting pregnant is considered to be a health risk. The reason being that abnormal pregnancy conditions such as molar pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy and Miscarriages are highly likely to occur. In addition is the baby is born it has high chances of suffering from genetic abnormalities such as downs syndrome.
Pre-existing medical are those conditions that a woman had before getting pregnant and which can pose a problem to the pregnancy. Some of these pre-existing conditions may include: cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, lumps, maternal PKU, urinary fibroids, urinary tack infections and sexually transmitted infections.
There are also pregnancy-induced conditions that can be developed by any pregnant woman regardless of their health. Generally most of them do not pose high risk to the health of the woman although some are considered to high risk. Examples include: Problems with the placenta, Preterm Labor, Toxemia (Pregnancy Induce Hypertension), Incompetent Cervix among other complications.
Certain behaviors like alcoholism, cigarette smoking and use of hard drugs may complicate a pregnancy. Generally, pregnancy complications may affect the fetus, the woman or both and usually occur at different times of the pregnancy.