Why is early and regular health care during the prenatal period important?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

While most pregnancies are free of complications, unexpected difficulties can arise, especially if mothers have health problems. For example, an estimated 9 percent of expectant women are diagnosed with gestational diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance that emerges during pregnancy. All diabetic women need careful prenatal monitoring. Extra glucose in the mother's bloodstream causes the fetus to grow larger than average, making pregnancy and birth problems more common. Furthermore, these infants are at increased risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing type 2 diabetes. Maternal high blood glucose also greatly elevates the chances of physical malformations and compromises prenatal brain development: It is linked to poorer attention, memory, and learning in infancy and early childhood.
Another complication, experienced by 5 to 10 percent of pregnant women, is preeclampsia, in which blood pressure increases sharply and the face, hands, and feet swell in the last half of pregnancy. Untreated preeclampsia can cause brain hemorrhages and kidney failure in expectant mothers, damage to the placenta, and fetal death. Usually,hospitalization, bed rest, and drugs can lower blood pressure to a safe level. If not, the baby must be delivered at once.
Unfortunately, 6 percent of pregnant women in the United States wait until after the first trimester to seek prenatal care or receive none at all. Inadequate health care is far more common among low-income, ethnic minority mothers. Their infants are three times more likely to be born underweight and five times more likely to die than babies of mothers who receive early medical attention.