Gotta love copy and paste! :d . Hope this helps.
Pregnancy: protein in urine
q.
"why do I have protein in my urine?"
a.
There are a number of reasons why you may have protein in your urine, depending on what, if any, other symptoms you have and how much protein there is. A common cause of a ‘trace’ (which may be recorded in your notes as ‘tr’) of protein in your urine is contamination of the specimen by vaginal discharge. Discharge is normally quite prevalent during pregnancy, and it’s possible for some of this to get mixed up in a urine specimen. In this case, apart from knowing that you have a white-ish discharge, there will be no other symptoms.Another common reason for the presence of one , or more, of protein is having a urinary infection. In this case, you may also have an increased frequency of passing urine (though this may be difficult to judge as you go more often when you are pregnant anyway!). There may also be some burning sensation when passing urine, though this is not always present. If your midwife finds that you have more than a trace of protein in your urine, she may well ask you to produce a clean catch, midstream sample which can be sent away to test for the presence of bacteria, which would indicate an infection. If an infection were found, this would need antibiotic treatment. Protein in the urine is also one of the symptoms of pre-eclampsia, but in this case your blood pressure would also usually be raised and you might have significant oedema (swelling) too. Other symptoms of pre-eclampsia are headaches, ‘flashing lights’ in front of the eyes and upper abdominal pain. Unfortunately, there are also many women who feel remarkably well with pre-eclampsia, so it can be difficult for you to tell if you have it. A simple blood test for liver function can diagnose it. It doesn’t usually occur before mid-pregnancy.