She appears to have always declined pain medication during her deliveries. In the second month of her last pregnancy, she was diagnosed with a large fibroid. A fibroid is a benign tumor of the uterus, and often it is small enough and unobtrusive enough that one can leave it alone, and allow the course of the pregnancy to continue normally. Gianna's uterine tumor caused her considerable pain, and based on medical documents from Italy, it appears that the fibroid was large enough that it might have threatened the continuation of the pregnancy by compressing the fetus. Such compression, if not directly disruptive of the pregnancy itself, could nevertheless result in abnormalities in fetal development.
Large fibroids can also be a source of other complications during pregnancy.
They may cause preterm labor. They may cause the uterus to become trapped in the pelvis under the sacral promontory such that it would need to be manually elevated to allow further progress of the pregnancy. They may occasionally outgrow their blood supply and degenerate or infarct, causing considerable pain as well as presenting the risk of becoming infected. This would be a fairly low-risk approach for her situation. It would result, however, in the death of her 2 month old fetus, and preclude the possibility of future pregnancies.