Quick Answer
Call 911 and get evaluated, even if the crash felt minor and you feel fine. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of hospitalized injury and injury related death during pregnancy in the United States, and the mechanism that causes most fetal deaths, placental abruption, is not reliably detected by a quick look. Published clinical guidance calls for a minimum of four hours of tocodynamometric monitoring after direct abdominal trauma in pregnancy, extending to 24 hours if at least six contractions an hour are detected in that first window. Gather the other driver’s information and photograph the scene if you safely can. In Kentucky, your medical evaluation is an economic loss covered by basic reparation benefits, KRS 189.125(5) protects you from a seat belt argument, and the filing deadline is two years under KRS 304.39-230(6).
Getting in a car accident while you are pregnant is frightening. Most of what you should do is the same as it would be otherwise, but two things change: what to look for in yourself, and how quickly you should be seen.
Assess Your Injuries
Following a collision you will feel panic and anxiety. It is important to calm yourself so that you can assess your injuries. Try taking a couple of deep, slow breaths.
Look for any signs of bleeding or injury. Because you are pregnant, pay particular attention to your abdomen and your upper inner thighs. If there is bleeding or severe bruising, call 911.
Be aware that the most serious risk in a crash during pregnancy is one you cannot see or feel reliably. Placental abruption from maternal trauma is a leading cause of fetal loss and, according to a review of motor vehicle safety during pregnancy published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, accounts for a reported 60 to 70 percent of all fetal deaths in this setting. A published case report describes a patient who arrived at the hospital with no significant abdominal findings other than a seat belt mark and then developed abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding two hours after admission. That is why the absence of symptoms at the scene is not reassurance, and why the next section is about calling for help rather than waiting to see.
If you are not in immediate danger it may be best to stay in the vehicle. If your car is sitting in the middle of moving traffic, however, it may be safer to move to a protected location.
Call Emergency Services
If you are not severely injured and the other people involved appear to be all right, you can call the local police dispatch to report the incident. Because you are not using the emergency line, it may take longer for an officer to arrive.
If you or the other driver or any passenger is injured, do not hesitate to call 911. That produces the quickest response, and with a crash involving injuries both police and medical services are dispatched to the location.
If you are pregnant and you are not sure whether an emergency response is needed, call 911. The operators can help determine whether the situation rises to the level of an emergency, and they will coordinate the response based on the information you give them. Tell the dispatcher that you are pregnant and how far along you are. That single piece of information changes how responders triage you and where they take you, because an obstetric evaluation is not available at every facility.
Collect Information and Wait for Police Response
While you wait for police to arrive, talk to the other driver if it is safe to do so. You will need their personal information, including their name, address and insurance details. After exchanging information, take photographs or video of the scene.
One extra thing to photograph, if you are able: your own seat belt and how it was positioned, and the seat and steering wheel position. That documentation is worth having for a reason explained further below, and it is impossible to recreate later.
If the other driver is unwilling to cooperate, or makes you feel nervous or uncomfortable, wait for the police. In the meantime keep a safe distance and do not interact with them.
Once officers arrive they will help resolve the situation, and if necessary they can help facilitate the exchange of insurance information.
Get Checked, Even After a Minor Crash
This is the part the original version of this article left out, and it is the most important. You should be medically evaluated after a crash while pregnant even if the impact seemed minor and you feel fine, and the reason is that the standard evaluation is a period of monitoring rather than a single examination.
According to a clinical review of neonatal trauma following motor vehicle collision in pregnancy published in Neoreviews:
- Tocodynamometric monitoring is recommended for a minimum of four hours after direct abdominal trauma in pregnancy, and if at least six contractions per hour are detected during that first four hour period, 24 hours of monitoring is recommended
- Ultrasound is not a reliable way to rule this out. Ultrasonography has poor sensitivity, 24 percent, but high specificity, 96 percent, for detecting placental abruption. In plain terms, a normal ultrasound does not mean there is no abruption, though an abnormal one is meaningful
- Blood testing has a role. The Kleihauer-Betke test, or flow cytometry, should be performed in all pregnant women with major trauma to assess for fetomaternal hemorrhage
- Adverse fetal outcomes and fetal death after crashes are associated with increased crash severity, improper seat belt use and significant maternal injury
This is general information from published clinical literature, not medical advice about your situation, and it is not a substitute for being seen. What it should tell you is that four hours in a monitored setting is a normal and expected response to a crash during pregnancy, so if someone suggests you go home and see how you feel, it is reasonable to ask for an obstetric evaluation instead.
On seat belts, which is the question almost every pregnant driver asks: the review in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine states that during pregnancy women should wear a three point restraint with the lap belt placed below the abdomen and the shoulder belt placed diagonally above the abdomen. The same review notes that in later pregnancy a woman may be unable to maintain the ten inch distance from the steering wheel airbag that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends, which is a reason to discuss seat and pedal position with a clinician rather than to stop using a restraint.
Kentucky Rules That Matter to You Specifically
Four points of Kentucky law affect a pregnant driver or passenger after a crash, and the first one may be the most reassuring.
A seat belt argument cannot be used against you the way you might fear. Under KRS 189.125(5), failure of any person to wear a seat belt shall not constitute negligence per se, and failure to use a child restraint system or child booster seat shall not be considered contributory negligence, nor shall it be admissible as evidence in the trial of any civil action. Kentucky does require the driver and all passengers in a vehicle manufactured after 1981 to wear a properly adjusted and fastened seat belt under KRS 189.125(6), and you should wear one positioned as described above, but the statute is explicit that not wearing one is not negligence per se.
Your evaluation is covered before anyone decides who was at fault. Kentucky is a no fault state for early expenses. Under KRS 304.39-020(2), current text effective July 15, 2026, maximum basic reparation benefits are $10,000 for all economic loss per person per accident. That is the money that pays for the emergency room visit and the monitoring period without waiting on a liability determination. Do not confuse it with the separate and much smaller figure in the next paragraph.
Recovering for what you went through emotionally requires clearing a threshold. Under KRS 304.39-060(2)(b), pain and suffering is recoverable only if medical expense exceeds $1,000 or the injury involves permanent disfigurement, a bone fracture, loss of a body member, permanent injury within reasonable medical probability, permanent loss of a bodily function, or death. Four hours or more of obstetric monitoring plus emergency department charges will often exceed $1,000 on their own, which is one practical reason not to skip the evaluation. Under KRS 304.39-060(2)(c), those limits do not apply at all to a person who is not an owner, operator, maintainer or user of a motor vehicle, such as a pedestrian, nor to a motorcycle passenger.
The deadline is two years, not one. Kentucky’s general limitation for a personal injury action is one year under KRS 413.140(1)(a), current text effective July 15, 2026. But a motor vehicle tort action under KRS 304.39-230(6) may be commenced not later than two years after the injury or the death, or after the date of issuance of the last basic or added reparation payment, whichever occurs later. Because that period can run from the last no fault payment rather than from the crash, the date is not always obvious, which is a reason to have someone calculate it for you rather than to estimate.
Two more Kentucky rules can come into play. Fault is apportioned: under KRS 411.182(1) and (2) the fact finder assigns each party a percentage of the total fault, and under KRS 411.182(3) the judgment states each party’s equitable share, which makes liability several rather than joint and several. And if a child born from the pregnancy is later found to have suffered harm, KRS 413.170(1) provides that where a person entitled to bring one of the actions listed in KRS 413.090 to 413.160 was an infant when the cause of action accrued, the action may be brought within the same number of years after the disability is removed. That provision is written to the limitations in KRS Chapter 413 and does not by its terms address the separate motor vehicle deadline, so it should not be relied on as a reason to wait. If a crash causes a death, KRS 411.130(1) requires the wrongful death action to be prosecuted by the personal representative of the deceased rather than by a family member individually, and KRS 411.135 gives the surviving parent or parents of a deceased minor child a claim for the loss of affection and companionship that would have been derived from the child during its minority, in addition to the other elements of damage usually recoverable.
For the rules of the road that determine who was at fault in the first place, and the Kentucky data on which driving mistakes cause the most crashes, see our article on what causes vehicle accidents, and our overview of car accident claims explains how a claim is put together.
Pregnant and Hurt in a Kentucky Crash? Let Us Handle the Rest
The thing that should have your attention right now is the monitoring, not the paperwork. Insurance adjusters call early, and a pregnant claimant is often asked for a statement or a medical authorization while she is still waiting on an obstetric evaluation, which is the worst possible moment to be making decisions about a claim. Call us today for a free case evaluation.
