Knowledge of the symptoms of Eclampsia
Dr.Kut | Jan 28, 2010 | Comments 0
Eclampsia in pregnancy is a condition that affects young women and elderly women in their first months of pregnancy and which manifests in the form of seizures. Eclampsia normally occurs after pre-eclampsia has not been treated properly. The seizures can be very severe and can cause death to the mother and the baby as well. The causes of this disease are not really well known but there are four basic stages that characterize the symptoms of the disease.
The first stage of the disease does not really give you much to worry about, as the symptoms are very vague. Twitching of the muscles of the hands and feet and the muscles of the eyes for short periods of time may be taken as fatigue and as a normal part of the pregnancy. And if you are not looking for the symptoms of eclampsia, then you can easily miss the first stage.
One the second stage there could be more rigidity of the muscles and the clenching of the hands and feet will be stronger. It will seem like a small epileptic attack and you may be confused and willing to think about the serious repercussions of these symptoms. Loss of breath is also common at this stage, however; the length of the seizure is not very long.
One the third stage, things start to get worse, as the seizures take full form and will affect the patient for 2 minutes of more and the patient can go on to a coma or suffer a heart attack after that. It is a dangerous stage that has to be avoided at all costs.
The fourth stage is of course the worse of them all and the patient may lose her life or she may go onto an indefinite coma that may last for many hours depending on the severity of the problem.
There are no real factors related to the causes of Eclampsia, however, it has been found that women, especially in their youth, who get pregnant at a tender age may not have the needed nutrition to stand the hardships of childbearing. This is also true for those women above the age of 40.
There are other factors which help in the development of Eclampia which include a history of high blood pressure in the family, obesity before pregnancy and history of pre-eclampsia or eclampsia in the family.
Eclampsia is very risky disease for you and your child and therefore it is very important to have all the information necessary to make sure you do not have any pre-eclampsia symptoms before getting pregnant, and in case you do, please make sure to consult your doctor and get all the guidance and treatment done well in time to make sure you are not endangering your life and that of your child.
Prevention is better than cure and that is especially important for diseases like eclampia. The symptoms hit the patient so fast and so silently that they hardly give you any time to do something to alleviate them.
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