Trauma and the Pregnant Patient - Essay Example

"Trauma and the Pregnant Patient" is a great example of a paper on pregnancy. For an adult patient, in order to determine the clinical signs of ‘Hypovolaemia’, the minimum percentage of blood loss, which is required for the disease to be evident, is above 15%. If an adult patient is undergoing a blood loss in excess of 10% but not above 15%, this cannot be considered as a sign of ‘Hypovolaemia.’ Moreover, it is to be affirmed that an adult patient possessing the signs of ‘Hypovolaemia’ disease would show the evidence of postural hypertension and urine output of 20 to 30 ml per hour (Patient.co.uk. 2013).

Question 1(b)

Around 30% to 35%

The percentage of blood loss, which is required in a female term gravid patient prior to the clinical signs of ‘Hypovolaemia’ becomes evident, is around 30% to 35%. Moreover, it is to be noted that a female gravid patient has more blood circulation in comparison with a normal patient. Hence, the possibility of blood loss is more in the case of the female gravid patient. Thus, for determining the disease of ‘Hypovolaemia’, more blood loss is required, which is a minimum of around 30% to 35% (Navarro, 2009).

Question 2

Approximately 20%

The oxygen intake of pregnant women rises to a 20% level approximately even during the hours of rest. This rise in oxygen level is due to the increased level of blood circulation among pregnant women. At the time of pregnancy, the metabolism of women increases. Correspondingly, their breathing also rises at large. This is because of the supplementary metabolism of the fetus (Desjardins, 2014; Livingstone, 2000).

Question 3

Approximately 27%

The percentage of cardiac output, which is required to be increased during the change from supine to the left ‘lateral decubitus’ for a pregnant patient, is around 27%. This is generally done to increase the oxygen level of pregnant patients, who require a higher level of oxygen because of the increased metabolism due to the fetus (National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S., 2014; Kulandavelu et. al., 2006).

Question 4

88.34 ± 11.46 bpm

The ECG rate of pregnant women changes to a higher level. This is because of the increased requirement of blood and oxygen to the body. The rate further increases at the time of birth of a child. This may be due to the reason of increased metabolism rate among pregnant women during the process of childbirth. It will be vital to mention in this similar context that the ECG rate is not similar throughout the globe amid pregnant patients specifically at the time of doing ECG in late pregnancy. Thus, with this concern, the “normal” ECG changes in late pregnancy can be ascertained as 88.34 ± 11.46 bpm (Akinwusi, Oboro & et. al., 2011).

Question 5

4 cm

Typically, for pregnant women, the diaphragm increases up to 4cm. This might be owing to the reason for the rise of cephalad and flaring of ribs of pregnant women. Specially mentioning, through the rise of the diaphragm level, the tidal volume also increases considerably. Tidal volume is the volume of air, which is inhaled and expired during each breath. Thus, the residual volume falls considerably during the pregnancy period (Chesnutt, 2004).

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