Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Preeclampsia and Future Cardiovascular Risk

7/10/2007: I'm not sure why but I've gotten at least 30 hits on this post in the last few days. A lot of people are being referred to this post via their email accounts. Anyone care to share what is so interesting about this post? As a survivor of preeclampsia, I'd love to hear what brings you here. Leave a comment please. :) Jen

More bad news for me as a two time severe preeclampsia survivor who developed hypertension after the birth of my 2nd daughter. Guess I'd better see what my internist thinks about this...

1: Expert Rev Cardiovasc Ther. 2007 Mar;5(2):283-94. Links
Preeclampsia and future cardiovascular risk.Newstead J, von Dadelszen P, Magee LA.
University of Saskatchewan, Department of Medicine, Saskatoon, SK, Canada. jill.newstead@shaw.ca

Pregnancy is a metabolic and vascular 'stress test' for women and those who 'fail' are at increased risk of long-term cardiovascular complications. Specifically, women who develop preeclampsia (and/or other manifestations of placental dysfunction) are at increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and cardiovascular disease in general. The risk is highest among women who develop both maternal (e.g., hypertension and proteinuria) and fetal (e.g., intrauterine growth restriction) manifestations of abnormal placentation, especially with preterm delivery. Most women who develop a maternal placental syndrome return to a normal clinical state in the weeks following pregnancy and their absolute risk of cardiovascular disease in the short term is very low. However, perhaps having a placentally complicated pregnancy affords women the opportunity to personalize risk and take action. Action is needed. The fact that we, as a population, are getting heavier and more sedentary is an urgent public health issue. The American Heart Association recommends that all women (even those at low cardiovascular risk) pursue dietary and lifestyle changes, in addition to smoking cessation. Engaging women of child-bearing age who may be motivated by a complicated pregnancy would be very valuable, from a public health perspective, given the prevalence and importance of cardiovascular disease in women, and the central role of the woman as caregiver to children, spouses and other family members.

PMID: 17338672 [PubMed - in process]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jen, your sight was linked to an email sent out by the HELLP Syndrome society. I belong to a mailing list of women who had HELLP in pregnancy and there is a team of researchers from Yale trying to get women with past history to participate in a study.

Some researchers believe women with past presence of HELLP have a higher future risk of Cardiovascular disease, thus the link to your article. Hope this sheds some light on why your traffic has increased. Your girls are beautiful! Dawn Smith, smithdaw@hotmail.com

Cassie said...

Hi,
I had HELLP n my first pregnancy (2005) and Postpartum PE in my second (2008). I am interested in finding out more about cardiovascular risks later in life. I did a search "cardiovascular risk and preeclampsia" and your blog showed up.