Women who experience complications such as preterm births and preeclampsia during their first pregnancy are nearly twice more likely than women without complications to develop high blood pressure later in life — some as quickly as three years later, according to a new study of more than 4,000 women.
The study was published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association. It was funded largely by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers say their findings underscore the need for doctors to focus more aggressively on knowing the health histories of women—both during their pregnancies to help prevent adverse outcomes, and afterwards to flag their risks for future cardiovascular events.
Past studies have shown that adverse pregnancy outcomes — a smaller-than-average baby, a stillbirth, a preterm delivery, for example — are associated with a high risk for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes in women at younger ages than those without adverse outcomes. But those studies have relied on retrospectively-collected data and self-reported reproductive histories.
For the current study, researchers recruited 4,484 women, of whom 62% are white, 14% black, 16% Hispanic, 3% Asian, and 5% reported as ‘other.’ The women had an average age of 27 at their first pregnancy. The researchers obtained detailed medical histories of the women two to seven years after their first pregnancy to see if outcomes in their first pregnancies were associated with their cardiovascular health.
The researchers found that 31% of the women with at least one adverse outcome during their first pregnancy experienced chronic hypertension, while only 17% of those who did not experience complications developed this condition. The risk of developing chronic hypertension grew even higher with additional adverse outcomes, they said.
