August 5, 2025 • 7 mins
The MetroHealth Maternal-Fetal Medicine program is the longest-standing training program for high-risk pregnancies in Cleveland. Whether you have existing health concerns when you become pregnant or you develop issues during your pregnancy, it is important to be seen by a maternal-fetal medicine provider for both a healthy pregnancy and baby. In today’s episode, we’ll be speaking with Dr. Kelly Gibson, OB-GYN and the Division Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at MetroHealth, on what women can expect if they have a high-risk pregnancy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, it's real Welcome back to another episode of
Mammy Virtue, brought to you by Metro Health. Today we
are talking about navigating health care for high risk pregnancies.
The Metro Health Maternal Fetal Medicine Program is the longest
standing training program for high risk pregnancies in Cleveland. Whether
you have existing health problems or concerns, or when you
become pregnant or develop issues during your pregnancy, it's important
(00:24):
to be seen by a maternal fetal medicine provider for
both a healthy pregnancy and baby. And in today's episode,
we're gonna be speaking with doctor Kelly Gibson, OBGYN and
the Division Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Metro Health
what women can expect if they have a high risk pregnancy. So, first,
thank you so much for joining us. How are you today,
I'm good?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thank you for having me good, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
All Right, let's just jump pret into it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
High risk pregnancy is just one of those subjects where
people are like, wait a second, do I fall into that?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
What is that? What does that mean? So?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What qualifies a pregnancy is high risk? And are there
any health conditions that contribute to a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Wow, So a high risk pregnancy you can kind of
define it if there's an issue with mom's health or
if there's something that arises during the pregnancy with the
baby's health. So, for example, the most common things we
see are moms who have a history of diabetes or
high blood pressure or loopis. Those are some of the
more common things we see. In terms of the babies,
(01:19):
if there's twins or triplets, that would be a reason
to come see us. There's a concern maybe with the
baby's hard or brain, or something with the baby's anatomy,
those would also be reasons to come and see us.
Or if someone had a complication in a prior pregnancy,
maybe a pre term birth or pre acclaimsia, those would
also be reasons to see us.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Got you now, what about age? Like, what determines your
age being high risk?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And why?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, So age is really a risk factor for a
couple of different conditions in pregnancy, and it's really those
conditions that would make you come to see us, not
justtur age. So being older puts you a little higher
risk for complications like diabetes of pregnancy or pre acclemsia.
So if you develop those then I would want to
(02:06):
see Youah, you're also at a little higher risk for
genetic issues for the baby, so things like down syndrome.
We do have screening for that. So on that screening,
if that came back as a high risk, then you
would want to come and see us. If that came
back as low risk, you wouldn't necessarily have to see
us just for your age.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, gotcha. How early in a pregnancy can these risk
be detected?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So some risks could be detected fairly early in pregnancy.
I talked about that genetic screening that can actually be
done as early as usually around ten weeks of pregnancy,
so still in the first trimester. Other things we can
detect later in pregnancy, So something like diabetes of pregnancy,
if you had it before pregnancy, we would know, But
(02:49):
in pregnancy usully we test at the beginning of the
third trimester.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Understood diabetes. Now, that's something that is familiar to a
lot of people. Some women don't even get it until
they pregnant, and that is a gestational diabetes. So what
exactly is that and how is it managed?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So diabetes and pregnancy really arises because of some of
the hormonal changes and how your body processes sugar, and
in some patients during pregnancy, it leads to their sugars
being higher. Those higher sugars are than what we call
gestational diabetes or diabetes from pregnancy, and those high sugars
can affect the baby and the baby's growth and cause
(03:27):
problems for delivery, and are really important for us to
be able to control during pregnancy. They also tell us
that mom may have a risk for diabetes later in life,
and so we want to treat her during the pregnancy
as well as see her postpartum.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I love all this information because I feel like sometimes
we have these like.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Remarks made. Do you hear about this stuff? Right? You're like,
but what is that? And then you don't really if
there's so much going.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
On when a woman becomes pregnant or is going through pregnancy,
and then to have like stuff like diabetes and you're
just like wait what. So I love that if someone's
watching right now and they're just like, okay, you know,
we're just kind of warming them up and getting them prepared.
It may never even apply to them, but still it's
just good to know, you know, just to kind of
pre clamsy. It preclamsy it what are the warning signs
(04:11):
and how does it affect the pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
So preclamsy is probably the other most common complication that
we see in pregnancy, and it's high blood pressure is
related to pregnancy. Terms of things we do to detect it.
Why we check your blood pressure at every visit, while
we look for things like protein in your urine because
those are ways that we can diagnose it. You also
may develop bad headaches, chest pain, or trouble breathing, or
(04:36):
it may affect the baby's growth. So those are different
things that we watch for during pregnancy. Terms of things
a patient could watch for, certainly checking blood pressures at visits,
coming in for regular care. But if you start having
really bad headaches, chest pain, just feeling that something is off,
listen to that and come in so that we can
check you.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Good good to know.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I hope you guys are really paying attention because this
is good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
For real.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's scary, but it's good to know because again it's
kind of like prepares you. And then there's are questions
you can ask your doctor too. So before does having
one high risk pregnancy increase the chances of you having
another high risk pregnancy if you become pregnant later.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It's a great question. So often it does increase the risk,
but it doesn't mean you absolutely will. If, for example,
you have diabetes before pregnancy, you'll probably have diabetes again
and need to see me. But let's say you had
gestational diabetes or pre acclamsia. That may not happen again
and so you may not need to see me. We
would have to screen you, but it doesn't necessarily mean
(05:33):
you have to be a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, this is just a separate question.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Is a c section essentially like a high risk thing
or can even if you had a c section before,
would that be considered high risk if you're pregnant again later.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Having a c section in the past does not mean
that you have a high risk pregnancy this time. It
would mean you'd have to have a discussion with your
doctor or your midwife about what you wanted this delivery
to look like, if you wanted another sea section, or
or if you wanted to try for a vaginal delivery,
so you could talk about that with your regular provider.
You would not necessarily have to come and see me
(06:07):
or with high risk partners just.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
For that history this was wondering.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, it's a good and if you could tell us
what sets Metro Health apart from other hospitals in both
recognizing and treating high risk pregnancies.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, as you mentioned at the beginning, we have one
of the we we have with the longest training program
for high risk of cetrics. To become a high risk obstetrician,
we actually do three additional years of training, so we
have the oldest program for that. We also have we're
the Center for Maternal Feetal Medicine Research. It's actually an
NIH grant at fourteen centers across the country and Metro
(06:42):
Health is one of those fourteen centers. So not only
do we have a whole team of high risk subspecialists,
we're actually doing the research to help us understand how
to better care for patients during pregnancy right here. So
we kind of have that cutting edge how to off
the presses research here in our program.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It well, listen, thank you so much. I really appreciate
the information. Pregnancy for some people is like terrifying. They're like,
what is about to happen to my body? What's gonna
happen to my baby? But then when you throw high
risk pregnancy in there. I can imagine how extra scary
that sounds. So to have this conversation and be able
to share your expertise and just you know, get the
conversation starting so that you can have it with your doctor,
(07:20):
I thinks is super important cause hopefully that's not somebody's experience,
but if it is, they have skilled, trained actors who
are willing and very helpful in your journey with your pregnancy,
high risk or normal. So thank you so much, Kelly,
I really appreciate it. Metro Health cares for.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You and your pregnancy as a team.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Their Maternal Feudal Medicine program is Cleveland's longest standing training
program for high risk pregnancies. For more information or to
make an appointment with a high risk obgyn, visit metrohealth
dot org slash obgyn or call two one six seven
seven eight forty four forty four till next time,
Hey everybody, it's real Welcome back to another episode of
Mammy Virtue, brought to you by Metro Health. Today we
are talking about navigating health care for high risk pregnancies.
The Metro Health Maternal Fetal Medicine Program is the longest
standing training program for high risk pregnancies in Cleveland. Whether
you have existing health problems or concerns, or when you
become pregnant or develop issues during your pregnancy, it's important
(00:24):
to be seen by a maternal fetal medicine provider for
both a healthy pregnancy and baby. And in today's episode,
we're gonna be speaking with doctor Kelly Gibson, OBGYN and
the Division Director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Metro Health
what women can expect if they have a high risk pregnancy. So, first,
thank you so much for joining us. How are you today,
I'm good?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Thank you for having me good, Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
All Right, let's just jump pret into it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
High risk pregnancy is just one of those subjects where
people are like, wait a second, do I fall into that?
Speaker 3 (00:51):
What is that? What does that mean? So?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
What qualifies a pregnancy is high risk? And are there
any health conditions that contribute to a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Wow, So a high risk pregnancy you can kind of
define it if there's an issue with mom's health or
if there's something that arises during the pregnancy with the
baby's health. So, for example, the most common things we
see are moms who have a history of diabetes or
high blood pressure or loopis. Those are some of the
more common things we see. In terms of the babies,
(01:19):
if there's twins or triplets, that would be a reason
to come see us. There's a concern maybe with the
baby's hard or brain, or something with the baby's anatomy,
those would also be reasons to come and see us.
Or if someone had a complication in a prior pregnancy,
maybe a pre term birth or pre acclaimsia, those would
also be reasons to see us.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Got you now, what about age? Like, what determines your
age being high risk?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
And why?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, So age is really a risk factor for a
couple of different conditions in pregnancy, and it's really those
conditions that would make you come to see us, not
justtur age. So being older puts you a little higher
risk for complications like diabetes of pregnancy or pre acclemsia.
So if you develop those then I would want to
(02:06):
see Youah, you're also at a little higher risk for
genetic issues for the baby, so things like down syndrome.
We do have screening for that. So on that screening,
if that came back as a high risk, then you
would want to come and see us. If that came
back as low risk, you wouldn't necessarily have to see
us just for your age.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, gotcha. How early in a pregnancy can these risk
be detected?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So some risks could be detected fairly early in pregnancy.
I talked about that genetic screening that can actually be
done as early as usually around ten weeks of pregnancy,
so still in the first trimester. Other things we can
detect later in pregnancy, So something like diabetes of pregnancy,
if you had it before pregnancy, we would know, But
(02:49):
in pregnancy usully we test at the beginning of the
third trimester.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Understood diabetes. Now, that's something that is familiar to a
lot of people. Some women don't even get it until
they pregnant, and that is a gestational diabetes. So what
exactly is that and how is it managed?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So diabetes and pregnancy really arises because of some of
the hormonal changes and how your body processes sugar, and
in some patients during pregnancy, it leads to their sugars
being higher. Those higher sugars are than what we call
gestational diabetes or diabetes from pregnancy, and those high sugars
can affect the baby and the baby's growth and cause
(03:27):
problems for delivery, and are really important for us to
be able to control during pregnancy. They also tell us
that mom may have a risk for diabetes later in life,
and so we want to treat her during the pregnancy
as well as see her postpartum.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I love all this information because I feel like sometimes
we have these like.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Remarks made. Do you hear about this stuff? Right? You're like,
but what is that? And then you don't really if
there's so much going.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
On when a woman becomes pregnant or is going through pregnancy,
and then to have like stuff like diabetes and you're
just like wait what. So I love that if someone's
watching right now and they're just like, okay, you know,
we're just kind of warming them up and getting them prepared.
It may never even apply to them, but still it's
just good to know, you know, just to kind of
pre clamsy. It preclamsy it what are the warning signs
(04:11):
and how does it affect the pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
So preclamsy is probably the other most common complication that
we see in pregnancy, and it's high blood pressure is
related to pregnancy. Terms of things we do to detect it.
Why we check your blood pressure at every visit, while
we look for things like protein in your urine because
those are ways that we can diagnose it. You also
may develop bad headaches, chest pain, or trouble breathing, or
(04:36):
it may affect the baby's growth. So those are different
things that we watch for during pregnancy. Terms of things
a patient could watch for, certainly checking blood pressures at visits,
coming in for regular care. But if you start having
really bad headaches, chest pain, just feeling that something is off,
listen to that and come in so that we can
check you.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Good good to know.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I hope you guys are really paying attention because this
is good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
For real.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's scary, but it's good to know because again it's
kind of like prepares you. And then there's are questions
you can ask your doctor too. So before does having
one high risk pregnancy increase the chances of you having
another high risk pregnancy if you become pregnant later.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
It's a great question. So often it does increase the risk,
but it doesn't mean you absolutely will. If, for example,
you have diabetes before pregnancy, you'll probably have diabetes again
and need to see me. But let's say you had
gestational diabetes or pre acclamsia. That may not happen again
and so you may not need to see me. We
would have to screen you, but it doesn't necessarily mean
(05:33):
you have to be a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, this is just a separate question.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Is a c section essentially like a high risk thing
or can even if you had a c section before,
would that be considered high risk if you're pregnant again later.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Having a c section in the past does not mean
that you have a high risk pregnancy this time. It
would mean you'd have to have a discussion with your
doctor or your midwife about what you wanted this delivery
to look like, if you wanted another sea section, or
or if you wanted to try for a vaginal delivery,
so you could talk about that with your regular provider.
You would not necessarily have to come and see me
(06:07):
or with high risk partners just.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
For that history this was wondering.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, it's a good and if you could tell us
what sets Metro Health apart from other hospitals in both
recognizing and treating high risk pregnancies.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, as you mentioned at the beginning, we have one
of the we we have with the longest training program
for high risk of cetrics. To become a high risk obstetrician,
we actually do three additional years of training, so we
have the oldest program for that. We also have we're
the Center for Maternal Feetal Medicine Research. It's actually an
NIH grant at fourteen centers across the country and Metro
(06:42):
Health is one of those fourteen centers. So not only
do we have a whole team of high risk subspecialists,
we're actually doing the research to help us understand how
to better care for patients during pregnancy right here. So
we kind of have that cutting edge how to off
the presses research here in our program.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
It well, listen, thank you so much. I really appreciate
the information. Pregnancy for some people is like terrifying. They're like,
what is about to happen to my body? What's gonna
happen to my baby? But then when you throw high
risk pregnancy in there. I can imagine how extra scary
that sounds. So to have this conversation and be able
to share your expertise and just you know, get the
conversation starting so that you can have it with your doctor,
(07:20):
I thinks is super important cause hopefully that's not somebody's experience,
but if it is, they have skilled, trained actors who
are willing and very helpful in your journey with your pregnancy,
high risk or normal. So thank you so much, Kelly,
I really appreciate it. Metro Health cares for.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You and your pregnancy as a team.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Their Maternal Feudal Medicine program is Cleveland's longest standing training
program for high risk pregnancies. For more information or to
make an appointment with a high risk obgyn, visit metrohealth
dot org slash obgyn or call two one six seven
seven eight forty four forty four till next time,
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