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Doctors Lounge - Gynecology Answers
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Back to Gynecology Answers List
| RaeRae
- Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:19 pm |
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My period has never been regular. I've had months when I've had two short periods, and other months where I've missed a period entirely. It's been this way since I started having a period. It's normal to me.
In 2000, I found myself in a situation against my will where I became pregnant. I had an abortion. No problems. Now, 9 years later, I'm engaged with a wonderful man, and we're planning on getting married in October.
About two weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant with my fiance. No symptoms, just tender breasts and a random pregnancy test for kicks. A doctor's visit confirmed the pregnancy. And in doing the math, I think I'm almost two months. Not a planned pregnancy, my first decision is to have an abortion, but now I'm sitting here wondering what the risks would be if I decided to continue with the pregnancy? For the past two months, I've been drinking (and holiday drinking no less), smoking a few cigarettes, two instances of marijuana, soda, fast food, etc.? I just haven't been being very healthy lately. Obviously, I've stopped since I found out, but what kind of damage might I be looking at for the potential baby?
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| Debbie Miller, RN
- Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:09 am |
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 Hello,
The baby has an amazing ability to survive many insults during his/her development. The nourishment the fetus gets from your blood is not the immediate, direct nourishment you have taken in. Sometimes the mother suffers because the baby takes the nutrients and she suffers through inadequate calcium or some other nutrient, but this is more likely in the case of severe malnutrition. Long-term use of drugs, alcohol and smoking is the most dangerous. We do not know what level is "safe" so we advise women to avoid these substances to be certain. However, 50% of all pregnancies are unplanned and healthy babies are the typical result, regardless of the early use of these substances, assuming they aren't one of the few known teratogens such as thalidamide or even Accutane.
The most important thing to do now is take care of yourself from this point on. Stopping bad habits now has been shown to make a positive difference. To continue to use would increase risks to your baby in ways such as fetal alcohol syndrome.
Take a multivitamin to boost your nutritional status and avoid bad habits. You should be able to have a healthy pregnancy and you need not fear much more than any expectant mother does. There is a 3-5% chance of birth defects even among "perfect" pregnancies. There's a certain amount of luck involved.
This would certainly in itself not be an indication or induced abortion.
Good luck.
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