Pregnant Women’s High Blood Pressure Doubles, Treatment Stalls

Pregnant Women's High Blood Pressure Doubles
Pregnant Women's High Blood Pressure Doubles. Credit | Hero Images Inc.

United States: According to a recent study, the proportion of pregnant women with long term high blood pressure has increased over the last 15 times, although treatment rates are still low.

Intimidating Increase in Hypertension During gestation

According to studies, the percentage of pregnant women with high blood pressure increased from 1.8 percent in 2008 to almost 3.7 percent in 2021.

Treatment Rates Remain Stagnant

Prescriptions for high blood pressure, however, continued to be given to pregnant women mostly unchanged; just 60 percent of them received medications that may decrease their blood pressure.

Research Findings and Data Analysis

Lead researcher Stephanie Leonard, an epidemiologist with Stanford University School of Medicine, stated, “While the rate of hypertension in pregnancy has doubled, the use of medication for treatment remained stable at only 60%, which we believe is likely below what it should be if patients are treated according to clinical guidelines.”

Disappointing Impact of 2017 Guidelines

 Researchers and health experts have examined the information for 1.9 million pregnancies between 2007 and 2021 in a database of private and personal insurance claims for the study, published recently in a  journal Hypertension.

They discovered that during the last fifteen years, there has been a steady increase in the number of prenatal diagnoses for high blood pressure.

Therefore, the researchers were shocked to discover that diagnoses had not increased after a 2017 guideline update that decreased the cut-off point for early-stage hypertension.

In a journal news release, Leonard stated, “We had hoped to see some impact from the 2017 guideline, which reduced the blood pressure threshold for treatment of hypertension.” “We were taken aback to discover no discernible differences between the guidelines’ implementation and before.”

Demographic Trends and Risks

 Women in the South who were 35 times of age or aged and suffering from habitual ails, including rotundity, diabetes, or renal complaint, were more likely to get pregnant and have high blood pressure.

The experimenters set up that persistently high blood pressure during gestation can harm the liver or feathers and increase a woman’s chance of developing heart failure and other cardiac conditions in the future.

Expert Opinion on Maternal Health Priorities

 Dr. Sadiya Khan, a Northwestern University professor of cardiovascular epidemiology who was not involved in the study, stated that “the prevention and control of hypertension should be among the highest priorities for improving maternal health” because nearly one in three people with chronic hypertension may experience a pregnancy complication.