Low Lying Placenta: Can It Happen Again?

ON Jan 1, 1999 at 12:00PM

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I had a low-lying placenta with my second pregnancy. The placenta did eventually move up the wall, and I ended up having a healthy baby. What are my chances of having this occur again?

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Peg Plumbo CNM

Peg Plumbo has been a certified nurse-midwife (CNM) since 1976. She has assisted at over 1,000 births and currently teaches in the... Read more

Your risk for recurrence of a low-lying placenta may be higher than in the normal population of pregnant women. First, advancing age and parity increase the risk of this condition. Also, whatever caused the first one may happen again. For example, uterine scarring from previous miscarriages, abortions and cesarean births can cause the zygote to implant lower than normally occurs. In addition, the typical incidence rate reported is about 0.3 percent to 0.5 percent, but women who smoke have a two-fold higher incidence rate.

If you have few of these predisposing factors, I believe your chances of having a normal pregnancy and birth are very good.

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