When To Get Help

Which Pregnancy Health Worries Can You Cope With at Home and Which Are Worth Taking Straight to the Doctor?

- Radhika Holmstrom

Are you the sort of woman who heads to your desk with a determined smile, and a few over-the-counter remedies when you should be tucked up in bed? Yet now, beset by various puzzling complaints that pregnancy can inflict, you find you’ve got your health professionals on speed-dial because you’re never sure whether something’s minor, major or in between?

For these 40 weeks, things are happening to your body that you never imagined and it’s all too easy to worry yourself sick about something that really isn’t much more than a nuisance. While you should consult your health professional team about your concerns, quite a few complaints don’t need more than a little bit of advice.

We’ve picked out 15 potential health problems and ‘triaged’ them into three groups: stay home, get help and go to hospital. If you’re worried about any symptoms, get help straight away. Because while you don’t want to spend your entire pregnancy living on your nerves, sometimes it’s worth getting the reassurance you need: and occasionally you’ll be very glad you did.

Stay home

Start by checking out advice from theNHS and mention these symptoms to your professionals; but on their own they shouldn’t be concerning; always get advice before taking any over-the-counter medicines.

PILES

If you feel a painful pressure in your back passage, you’ve fallen prey to pregnancy’s least glamorous ailment, as the result of hormones relaxing the veins in the anus so that they’re swollen (internally, or even sticking out).