How to Diagnose High Risk Pregnancy

Diagnosing a high-risk pregnancy is a complex activity; only trained, experienced healthcare professionals should perform an examination and risk assessment of a pregnant patient to determine whether she has a high-risk pregnancy. High-risk pregnancy refers to any pregnancy in which there is increased risk of harm to mother or baby because of existing factors before pregnancy or increased risk of developing complications during the pregnancy.

Things You'll Need

• Full medical history of the pregnant patient
• Full medical examination of the patient
• Risk assessment scoring sheet (available at http://www.merck.com/media/mmpe/pdf/Table_262-1.pdf)

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Instructions

Diagnosing high-risk pregnancy

• 1

  Determine risk factors present before pregnancy. These include age, weight, height, reproductive abnormalities, social characteristics such as low socioeconomic status, problems in a previous pregnancy or diseases present before pregnancy occurs.

• 2

  Determine risk factors that may develop during pregnancy, such as complications from taking any kind of drugs; increased risk of anemia, infection or clotting disorders; or risk of complications during pregnancy, like problems with the placenta or gestational diabetes.

• 3

  Determine the level of risk by calculating the patient's score on the risk assessment scoring sheet.