Reference no: EM133909167

Case study

Ellen is a 36 year old Caucasian woman 6 weeks pregnant with her first baby. She and her partner Todd planned the pregnancy and took nutritional supplements for 4 months before conceiving. They tried to eat only unprocessed organic food and Ellen took 500μg folic acid with iodine and B vitamins. Todd took a zinc and selenium supplement but found it too hard to quit his regular 2 beers per night.

Ellen is 1.65m tall and weighed 77kg when she conceived. She does not manage to do much exercise due to working long hours as an account manager. She has been experiencing nausea throughout the day and extreme sensitivity to smells for the past 5 weeks. She is also only able to move her bowels once per day with some difficulty. When the nausea subsides around 3pm she has strong sweet cravings which she tries to ignore but by then she is so hungry she will normally have a juice and a muffin or some chocolate.

Ellen's father has type two diabetes and high blood pressure. Her mother has osteoporosis but is otherwise healthy. Her sister Polly had two caesarean section deliveries due to high risk

Consider Ellen's medical and family history. Is her pregnancy high risk? Why/why not?