According to a newly released study, pregnant women have a strikingly increased risk of getting into a car accident, particularly if they are in the second trimester. Even so, men of the same age were found to have a still higher risk of crashing. Keep reading to learn more about this new study!

Monday, May 12, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published a study that concluded women have a far higher risk of crashing during a pregnancy than at any other time in their lives. To be precise, their risk of an accident increases by 42 percent during pregnancy as opposed to any other point in their lives. According to researchers, this could be because of "pregnancy brain", nausea, anxiety, exhaustion, and other issues that regularly accompany pregnancy.

The researchers examined the data of more than 500,000 women, four years before pregnancy through one year after they gave birth. The study tracked how many accidents sent a woman to the ER. For the years before pregnancy, the rate of major accidents was 4.5 crashes per 1,000 drivers a year, or 177 major accidents a month. This rate was the same into the first month of being pregnant. But the fourth month of pregnancy showed a marked change. Looking at the same data for the same women, there were 299 major accidents every month, or 7.6 crashes per 1,000 women a year. This rate fell to 2.7 crashes per 1,000 women by the last month of being pregnant.

This rate was only for pregnant drivers, the study found, as there was no correlation between pregnant pedestrians or passengers and a higher rate of crashes. While this speaks to the caution that pregnant drivers must show, this certainly does not mean that they should take a break from driving. After all, men of the same age, particularly young men, have far higher accident rates than do women.

Safety Tips for Pregnant Drivers & Passengers

Pregnant drivers are advised by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to ensure that the air bag is on, and that both a lap and shoulder belt are used. There should be 10 inches between the driver's breastbones and the steering wheel. And according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, pregnant passengers should push their seats back as much as they can, or sit in the back row for added safety. If you are an expecting mother, these are in fact the best practices to protect your unborn child; going without a seatbelt or air bag is in fact putting your unborn child at risk.

Of course, it only takes one mistake to end up in a car accident, and that mistake may not be entirely yours, or you may have had no blame in a crash at all. If you or your unborn child have been harmed in a car accident, you may be owed compensation. Find out when you call an auto accident lawyer today.