Women who have hypertensive disorders of pregnancy have an increased risk of developing fatal cardiovascular disease in the 12 months after delivery.
- Hypertensive disorders during pregnancy are strongly associated with fatal cardiovascular disease up to a year after birth, a new study suggests.
- Hypertensive disorders, with the exception of gestational diabetes, are linked to a doubling of the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease.
- For its part, eclampsia has been associated with a 58-fold increase in fatal cardiovascular diseases.
If you are expecting a child, be careful if you have chronic hypertension, gestational hypertension or pre-eclampsia. A study finds that hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, with the exception of gestational diabetes, increase the risk of cardiovascular death up to one year after birth.
This is what a study published in the journal reveals Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology.
High blood pressure during pregnancy: increased risks of cardiovascular diseases after birth
For this study, researchers used the U.S. Readmissions Database to examine pregnancy-related mortality rates among women ages 15 to 54 between 2010 and 2018. That represents more than 33 million hospitalizations. 11% of these patients suffered from hypertensive disorders. However, scientists have noticed that this number has climbed in recent years. In 2010, 9.4% of study patients suffered from hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. In 2018, they were 14.4%.
The analysis also reveals that all hypertensive disorders that cause dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy (chronic hypertension, gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia) were associated with a doubling of the risk of fatal cardiovascular disease in the 12 months after delivery . Eclampsia, a serious convulsive attack occurring in a pregnant woman with intracranial arterial hypertension, multiplied the risk by 58. Only gestational diabetes was not linked to an increased risk of maternal death from cardiovascular pathology.
Pregnant women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy should be monitored
“This study provides new information about how each hypertensive disorder is linked to life-threatening cardiovascular disease, so that healthcare professionals can more closely monitor patients with such complications and develop strategies to keep them healthy afterward. childbirth”says Cande Ananth, chief of the division of epidemiology and biostatistics in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine and senior author of the study in a communicated.
For researchers, it is essential to be very vigilant with expectant mothers suffering from hypertensive disorders, particularly pre-existing hypertension. This is because heart disease and related cardiac symptoms can be confused with common symptoms of a normal pregnancy. Additionally, diagnostic delays are linked to an increased incidence of preventable complications.
“Early identification and optimal treatment of hypertensive disorders, particularly pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, are crucial for the primary prevention of maternal stroke”conclude the authors.
