Now, a simple and inexpensive test can predict a fatal pregnancy disorder. Indeed, pregnant women don't have to worry about their condition anymore from their first up to the third trimester. All they need to do is answer a set of questionnaires. This is a new way of predicting the inception of a fatal pregnancy condition that has been developed recently. This latest research development can help prevent the death of more than 70,000 women and half-a-million newborn babies each year. This research study can effectively take place in developing countries.
According to SciTech Daily, researchers from Australia devised a simple, cost-efficient way of foreseeing preeclampsia, one of the leading causes of pregnancy disorder globally. Relatively, preeclampsia can lead to severe complications for mothers with babies. Such complications also include premature birth and liver and brain injury in mothers.
An Early Warning Device Employed for Years Now
The Australian researchers evaluated the health condition of almost 600 pregnant women using the Suboptimal Health Questionnaire. Even though this evaluation questionnaire has just been employed to assess pregnant women, it is not a new tool to predict health conditions. In fact, this evaluation tool was first developed in 2009.
With the scores of digestion, fatigue, mental health, heart health, and immunity combined, this questionnaire offers an overall rating for suboptimal health that can help in predicting chronic illnesses. Among the pregnant women evaluated, 61% of the respondents who scored high on the health questionnaire continued to acquire preeclampsia. Seventeen percent, on the other hand, got a low score.
When both results got combined along with blood tests that gauged the magnesium and calcium levels of women, the researchers could already accurately forecast preeclampsia development in nearly 80 percent of the cases. Recent studies have it that this said pregnancy disorder is very treatable once determined earlier. Therefore, giving the patient an early warning can definitely help save the lives of thousands of people.
Pregnancy Disorder Becomes Inexpensively Treatable
It was earlier mentioned that in developed countries, preeclampsia is undeniably the main reason why both mothers and babies die. However, through the Suboptimal Health Questionnaire, pregnancy complications can be detected earlier. Upon diagnosis, preeclampsia can be treated through medication that lowers the blood pressure explicitly upon.
The blood tests for both calcium and magnesium tests, as well as this health questionnaire, are inexpensive. Therefore, they ideally suit any developing nation where preeclampsia becomes the main culprit of women's and babies' fatalities. Moreover, the incorporation of suboptimal health status evaluation as a basis for predicting preeclampsia in pregnant women is highly suggested. This is for the proper management of pregnancy.