Twelve real questions, answered carefully.

That question belongs to your OB or midwife before it belongs to any website, and this guide will not answer it for your specific pregnancy. Ask them directly, and bring their answer with you to any appointment you make. A clinic that examines you can also tell you plainly what it will and will not do, and you are allowed to ask before anything is done.

Yes. Contact your obstetric provider and follow their instructions, even for a minor crash, even feeling fine. After their clearance, a documented exam of your back and neck is the careful next step, because crash strain surfaces over days and pregnancy adds load to what was strained. The 72 hours page explains the lag.

Emergency care if the situation calls for it, your OB or midwife in every case, and only then the clinic exam. Tell the clinic you are pregnant when you call, and share everything back with your OB. That order does not change for a low-speed crash, and it does not change because you have an appointment with your OB next week anyway; call them now.

A history of the crash, a physical exam, findings in writing, and a treatment plan. Bring your notes, any emergency or obstetric paperwork from after the crash, and your questions written down, because exam rooms make people forget their questions. Ask what was found, what the plan is, and what would make them send you somewhere else.

This week. The useful window is the one where a clinician can write down what the crash did before it blends into what pregnancy does on its own. A documented exam this week protects your health and your options. If the week has already passed, the next question answers that.

No. A later exam is still a real exam, and being honest about the timeline is part of the record. Tell the clinic the date of the crash and what has changed since. If pain has grown rather than faded over two weeks, that is more reason to go, not less, and it is also something your OB should hear.

Help with the calls, in order: her OB first, then the nearest clinic room once she is cleared, saying auto injury and pregnant. O'Fallon (636) 280-0990, Hazelwood (314) 627-1411, South County (314) 530-5480. Then keep the paperwork organized; the exam and written plan will matter for her care and for whatever follows the crash. There is a whole page for you.

That is precisely what an early documented exam is for. Describe your baseline honestly, describe what changed since the crash, and let written findings do the separating. The sooner the exam, the cleaner that separation. The ordinary strain page describes what a pregnant back does on its own so you can describe yours.

Wear the belt, every trip, and wear it low. NHTSA's guidance for pregnant drivers and passengers is the lap belt under the belly across the hips, the shoulder belt across the chest and off to the side of the belly, never under an arm or behind the back. The seat belt page walks through it with the seat and the wheel.

Often a headache after a rear-end hit comes from the neck, and whiplash commonly brings one. But a headache that gets worse, repeated vomiting, confusion, unusual drowsiness, or one pupil larger than the other are emergency signs, not clinic questions. Read the neck page, and if anything on the emergency list is present, go to the emergency room now.

Both, carefully. The ordinary strain page is about the back that aches by afternoon and the neck strained by new sleeping positions. The rest of the desk is about what changes when a crash enters the picture. The two are connected: the better you know your ordinary, the easier it is to describe what is new.

This desk is not the clinic. It is an advertising-supported reading desk, and it says so on every page. Missouri Injury Clinic is run by Joseph L. Hollingsworth, DC, a chiropractor with three rooms in the St. Louis metro. The clinic's line is putting the CARE back in healthcare. Details at moinjuryclinic.com, reached through the buttons on this site.