Quick stats
ONLY 2–5% OF PREGNANT WOMEN DEVELOP diabetes DURING PREGNANCY.
Obesity CAN RAISE INFANTS’ RISK OF HEART PROBLEMS AT BIRTH BY 15%.
MORE THAN 50% OF ALLL twins AND AS MANY AS 93% OF triplets ARE BORN AT FEWER THAN 37 WEEKS’ GESTATION.
“Pregnancy is a natural event for which your body is perfectly designed,” says Dr Dalene Barnard, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Kloof Mediclinic in Pretoria.
“However, high-risk pregnancies are when a woman or her baby has a characteristic condition that has been recognised by medical research to increase the chance of an adverse outcome for the mother and/or the baby.”
Some of the most common of these are for women at the extremes of their reproductive