Third trimester, risk factors and work

[Fakingit36]

I am 29 wks today, at risk of pre eclampsia since I had it before at 35 wks, and just failed first glucose screen (waiting for results on second one). I’m monitoring and tracking BP daily and it’s “perfect” so far. Baby measuring right and everything otherwise good. I’m terrified going into this next stretch though. I work in a hard charging consulting role with a lot of complexity and stress and emails flying all day/night. A colleague just spontaneously had her baby at 33 wks and it just seems to me obvious it’s work related. My immediate colleagues are great and supportive - but it’s on me to say what I need. The glucose result and the colleague giving birth have thrown me for a loop this week and it’s clear to me I MUST eat right, sleep right, hydrate, get enough down time and walk daily - not optimal. But my job makes those things hard. I am not ill enough for leave and not normal enough for normal - and i’m sick with worry that I could be damaging baby’s chances of being full term and healthy.

I think I could probably put foot down and insist on 1-2 days work at home from here. I just answered my own question didn’t I? What would you do?

Optimal = optional !

Yes, put yourself and your baby first and put your foot down. Will work do what you need? My doctor wrote me a letter to say I needed to be on light duties or work from home for the remainder of my pregnancy, as I couldn't cope with the commute. With your history I'm sure you could get support if you need it to make your case.

"Stress", as in regular work related stress doesn't make babies come early or massively affect blood pressure. If it did there would be no term babies from women in war zones. So try not to let your colleague's preterm labour affect your thinking. Wfh for a couple of days if your role permits sounds like a reasonable adjustment, where is the harm in asking. Try not to put so much pressure on yourself, tough I know but the MUST in your op makes me worry for you. Gentle on yourself. Your preeclampsia was not your fault or anything you did wrong. Just bad physiological luck. Yes you are at higher risk this time, but you're being monitored closely, and they will bring you in at a sniff of a symptom.

I think you are letting your colleagues situation overwhelm you a bit. I would try and put those thoughts to one side.
However with your history, some reduced and changed duties is appropriate at this point. When are you going on mat leave? I would think about 34 weeks tbh.

Can you get the risk assessment looked at again?

Please don't blame yourself for previous pre eclampsia. General every day/work related stress does not cause pre eclampsia or preterm labour and you aren't going to harm the baby by working.
However, if you can work from home for a day or two a week then that's worth it if its going to make you feel calmer and more positive. Especially if it's going to give you time.to focus on diet etc and make yourself feel physically better. Did the midwife tell you to check blood pressure daily? That seems like a lot.

Every situation is different obviously but I've spent my pregnancy convinced that I was going to get PE again after delivering at 34 weeks last time. I get blood pressure checks weekly and so far no signs of it at 38 weeks! And I'm still working full time in a fairly stressful job. Whilst you are at higher risk than someone who didn't have it in a first pregnancy, you're still less likely to get it in a second pregnancy.

If you fail the second GTT what will that mean for you? I think that regardless you should discuss this with your midwife to see what they feel you should be doing considering your history. It's always good to have a benchmark and be able to say "my midwife wants me to..."

So you need to eat, drink, sleep and walk. How exactly are these things hard in your role? I'm not in it so I don't know, but what sort of adjustments do you need from work to facilitate it while in the office because you should be doing these daily at home and at work (even if you did work a couple of days from home). When I was in a similar circumstance my occupational health built in regular breaks to enable me to move around more (although my manager put paid to me actually taking breaks by increasing my workload).

I think understanding why you feel your work can't accommodate the things you need is important here.

Thank you all. Well, I just found out that I do have gestational diabetes so am feeling gutted but also ready to tackle it and do what needs to be done from here. Spoke to a colleague who has her head screwed on and also happens to be both a mom and a doctor — she agreed with me that the place to start is getting more staffing support on our project and also being very clear that to do all the GD things like extra exercise and blood testing i’m going to need to be at home and also doing regular hours. I think those asks are quite realistic. Friends, i’l keep you posted.