Placenta Previa - Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Placenta previa is a common disorder in the latter pregnancy phases. It involves painless bleeding. It is an abnormality, which can happen in the placenta near the opening of uterus. Placenta is a disk formed organ and has a diameter of 7 inches. This bleeding occurs when the cervix expands in size and causes disruptions in placenta which contains so much blood. There are various kinds of this ailment which includes complete, partial and marginal. In the former version, the placenta engulfs the cervical opening. But, in the partial version of this ailment, the placenta only covers this opening moderately. In the marginal variant of this disease, the placenta gets near the cervix but does not cover it.

So, pregnant women are the most likely victims of this disease. It can affect every four pregnant women out of 1000 after the 20th week of pregnancy has elapsed. But, Asian women can easily become suffering of this disease as compared to women of other continents. Women who are bearing a male fetus can also get this disease easily whereas its chances are lower among women carrying female.

The probability of this disease is also higher if the woman has conceived at a higher age. If she has given birth to a large number of children, even then she can get this ailment quite quickly. The incidence of this ailment is even more likely if an expecting mother has suffered from it before in an earlier pregnancy.

The doctor can easily diagnose the existence of this ailment through an ultrasound examination. A probe can be inserted in the vagina or placed on the stomach. One of these examination suffices for discovering the placenta but sometimes, both kinds of examinations become quite necessary. As far as the treatment of this ailment is concerned, it depends on how severe is the bleeding and the age of pregnancy. The placement of the placenta also determines the method of treatment. It is better that the women suffering from this disorder deliver their children through a C-section delivery. This kind of a delivery is apt after 36 weeks of pregnancy but sometimes, due to uncontrollable bleeding, such a delivery has to be performed much earlier. A female can also experience stoppage of bleeding but immediate medical care is advocated if it starts again. Females who suffer from this ailment and are in their sixth or later months of pregnancy, should avoid doing cumbersome activities and indulging in sexual intercourse.

In this kind of an ailment, issues occur when the placenta previa should have moved itself away from the uterus as the level pregnancy has increased. However, sometimes, this movement does not happen and the placenta continues to exist near the uterus. Most of the women in their 10-20 weeks gestation term have placenta near uterus but it goes away as the time period elapses. However, the existence of this placenta after 20 weeks indicates an anomaly. Some factors also require females to have a larger placenta size because of its increased functions. For example, the female may reside at greater heights due to which the availability of oxygen for the fetus is low. Therefore, there is an increase in size of placenta.