The one page we hope you never need.

A crash while pregnant is frightening in a way this guide will not talk around. You are going to want someone to tell you what to do, in order, without hedging. This page is that. It is written for a moment when order helps, and it assumes you may be reading it in a parking lot with your hands not quite steady. If that is where you are, read the first section, make the calls it describes, and come back to the rest tonight.

First, and not negotiable

Emergency care and your obstetric provider come first. Even after a low-speed crash, even if you feel fine, contact your OB or midwife and follow their instructions exactly. They decide what gets checked and when. Obstetric providers routinely ask to be told about any crash during pregnancy, and the reason is simple: the questions that matter most in the first hours are questions about the pregnancy, and those are theirs to answer, not ours and not a chiropractor's.

Nothing else on this page begins until they have cleared you. This guide will not soften that step or suggest any shortcut around it. There is none.

At the scene, in order

1. If anyone is hurt, or if you have any symptom at all, call 911. Say you are pregnant and how far along. Let responders evaluate you; do not decline out of politeness or because you want to get home.
2. Get out of traffic if you safely can. A second collision is the scene's real danger.
3. Call your OB or midwife's office, or the after-hours line, before you drive anywhere. Tell them what happened, where the belt was, whether the airbag deployed, and how you feel right now. Write down what they tell you to do.
4. Exchange information and take your photographs. This is ordinary crash housekeeping, and it matters later for reasons that are not this desk's subject.
5. Do not drive yourself if you are shaking, dizzy, or in pain. Call someone. The partner's page tells them what to do when they arrive.

The first evening

Adrenaline is generous for a few hours and then it leaves. People feel fine at the scene, fine on the drive home, and begin to feel the crash somewhere between dinner and bed. Stiffness across the shoulders, a neck that does not want to turn, a low back that protests getting up from the couch, a headache that settles in behind the eyes. None of that is unusual after a rear-end hit, and the 72 hours page explains why it arrives late.

What is not a wait-and-see matter is anything that belongs to the pregnancy. Bleeding, leaking fluid, contractions or cramping, abdominal pain, a change in the baby's movement, dizziness or faintness: those are immediate calls to your obstetric provider or to emergency services, at any hour, without waiting to see whether they pass. Your OB will have told you this already. We are repeating it because it is the single most important sentence on the desk.

Before you sleep, write down the time of the crash, what hit what, where you were sitting, and what hurts right now on a scale you will remember tomorrow. Date the page. This is the first entry in a record you are going to keep for a few weeks.

Day two, and day three

The morning after is usually the worst of the neck and the best of the clarity. Stiffness peaks on the second and third days as the tissue that was strained swells and the muscles around it guard. Turning to check a blind spot hurts. Looking down at a phone hurts. Sleeping in the positions pregnancy already forced on you hurts in a new way.

Pay attention to what changes, not just what hurts. Pain that grows rather than fades, a headache that is worse on day three than day one, numbness or tingling into an arm, or any new symptom at all is worth a call to the clinic you are about to book and, if it touches the pregnancy in any way, a call to your OB first. Write each change down with the date and the time.

Then, the part everyone forgets

Once mother and baby are cleared, there is usually still a body that took a hit. Crash strain to the back and neck surfaces over the following days, and pregnancy adds load to exactly the structures that were strained: a lower back already carrying a changed center of gravity, ligaments already loosened by the hormones of pregnancy, a neck already sleeping in positions it did not choose. Feeling okay on the ride home does not settle the question.

That is where a documented exam belongs: after obstetric clearance, this week rather than someday. Missouri Injury Clinic takes auto-injury patients; the clinic publishes that lane as diagnosis and a treatment plan after a crash. Tell them you are pregnant and where you are in the pregnancy when you call, tell them what your OB said, and keep your OB in the loop about any care you receive. The getting seen page walks through the call and the visit. The rooms and their phones: O'Fallon (636) 280-0990, Hazelwood (314) 627-1411, South County (314) 530-5480. Every room closes from 12 to 2.

Watching the days after

Keep the notebook going for at least two weeks. Stiffness, headache, sleep, what you could and could not do that day. Bring the notes to the exam, and share anything concerning with your OB immediately. If days or weeks have already passed by the time you read this, go anyway; a later exam is still a real exam, and being honest about the timeline is part of the record.

You are allowed to take a minor-seeming crash seriously. During pregnancy, that is not overreaction. It is the standard.

The emergency line