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The Company You Keep

Hundreds of thousands of women have pregnancy complications every year. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the National Center for Health Statistics predict that this year, while bearing 3.9 million babies...

• 1,680,000 women will have placentas that form too low in the uterus, 18,500 of which will remain too low and necessitate C-sections.
• 1.050,000 woman will develop hypertension. Of these, 252,000-294,000 will have preeclampsia and 13,650 will have eclamptic seizures.
• 982,000 women will give birth by cesarean delivery.
• 420,000-840,000 will experience abnormal bleeding.
• 380,000 will go into labor too early.
• 210,000 will come down with viral infections.
• 139,000-420,000 women will have babies with intrauterine growth retardation.
• 126,000-504,000 will have gestational diabetes.
• 84,000-462,000 will get urinary tract infections.
• 42,000 will have too much amniotic fluid.
• 4,200-12,600 will vomit so severely they will need hospitalization.
• And, finally, of the 7,675,000 pregnancies conceived in the U.S. this year, 2,610,000 will end in miscarriage.

Sources: American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists; National Center fo Health and Statistics: "When Pregnancy Isn't Perfect" by Laurie A. Rich, 1991.