According to research funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a division of the National Institutes of Health, women who experienced complications related to developing high blood pressure, or hypertension, during pregnancy had a 63% increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease later in life.
The current analysis accounted for pre-pregnancy shared risk factors for these types of problems and cardiovascular illness, despite the fact that hypertensive pregnancy difficulties have previously been associated with elevated cardiovascular risks. Researchers also discovered that the majority of the elevated risk between pregnancy problems and subsequent cardiovascular events was caused by high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, or being overweight or obese after pregnancy.
The research, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, may help medical professionals create individualized plans for preventing and monitoring heart disease in pregnant women who have high blood pressure.
The information could also help bridge the gap that often occurs after a woman ends obstetric care and resumes or starts care with another provider.
Using health data shared by more than 60,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study II, the research represents one of the most comprehensive reviews evaluating links between future cardiovascular events in women who have had preeclampsia or gestational hypertension. Gestational hypertension is characterized by an increase in blood pressure during pregnancy. Preeclampsia is a more severe complication marked by a sudden rise in blood pressure that can affect the organs and be dangerous for both mother and baby. Both conditions are often diagnosed after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
After about 30 years, when the average age of women in the study was 61 years, approximately 1,074 (1.8%) of study participants had experienced a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. The type of event women had – and when they had it – often overlapped with specific pregnancy complications.
For example, compared to women with normal blood pressure in pregnancy, women with gestational hypertension, which was associated with a 41% increased risk for cardiovascular disease, were more likely to have a stroke about 30 years after their first pregnancy. Women with preeclampsia, which was associated with a 72% increased cardiovascular risk, were more likely to have a coronary artery event, such as a heart attack, as early as 10 years after their first pregnancy.
