The UiB study revealed how CVD is associated with pregnancy-induced hypertension, but this is not true for everyone.

Pregnancy brings about many fundamental changes in the body. The entire cardiovascular system is reorganized to support the life of her second child in the womb. The heart beats faster and the total amount of blood in the body doubles. The mother grows an entirely new organ, the placenta, to nourish and protect her growing baby. These are all normal, healthy, and safe.

Until it doesn’t. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of people develop cardiovascular problems during pregnancy, such as “pre-eclampsia,” in response to these physiological changes and problems with the placenta. The collective term for these problems is “hypertension syndrome of pregnancy” (HDP).

Some disorders, such as high blood pressure during pregnancy, are relatively benign. Other true emergencies include liver failure, kidney failure, and seizures. It is believed that all of these disorders share a common cause and only differ in the severity of symptoms.

Sage Wyatt, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen, is part of the HealthierWomen project at the University of Bergen, led by Rolv Skjærven. The aim of this project is to investigate women’s lifetime reproductive history and subsequent health outcomes. Other colleagues, including Associate Professor Liv Kvalvik, have already published research predicting CVD death from a history of pregnancy complications at age 40. Wyatt specifically studied how HDP can predict strokes and heart attacks in older adults.

With proper medical care, it is very rare for people with gestational hypertension to die during childbirth, but many continue to suffer from heart disease decades later. In other words, difficult times during pregnancy can provide a snapshot of the future.

It has been hypothesized that HDP represents chronic, subclinical CVD that manifests during the “stress test” of pregnancy. ”

Sage Wyatt, PhD Candidate, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen

Risk increased almost 10x

Until now, data scientists studying gestational hypertension have focused on the relationship between a single pregnancy with HDP and long-term risk of heart attack or stroke.

“But people who are pregnant don’t just have one pregnancy; they are unique individuals and have a unique lifetime history of gestational hypertension,” says Wyatt.

With the help of Norway’s compulsory birth registration and public healthcare system, the researchers examined the specific sequence and severity of gestational hypertension across a woman’s lifetime number of pregnancies.

Previous studies have concluded that having high blood pressure during pregnancy doubles your risk of heart attack or stroke. Instead, Wyatt found that some people were at serious risk compared to previous estimates, increasing their risk almost tenfold.

“These high-risk people may have a more severe condition because they have a rare pattern of multiple hypertension in their reproductive history and delivered their pregnancies earlier,” Wyatt said. To tell.

Clarifying the CVD risk of people giving birth to babies.

Wyatt also found that some patterns in pregnancy history, including hypertensive disorders, were not associated with heart attack or stroke at all.

“These people, who are at little or no risk, have the most common pattern of gestational hypertension, presenting with hypertension only during their first pregnancy and on time with no sign of serious problems or medical intervention.” “I gave birth in 2018 and my hypertension continued after that. It was a healthy pregnancy,” she says.

“Previous analyzes that combined all HDP pregnancy patterns into one variable may have masked the true potential risk for both low-risk and high-risk mothers,” Wyatt said. ing.

The study also uniquely included people who had only one child, and consistently found that they had a higher risk of heart attack and stroke than those who had more children. Besides HDP, other characteristics of reproductive history, such as fertility, may also predict her future CVD.

Every pregnant person is unique.

“Our study adds further nuance to our understanding of gestational hypertension; some are related to cardiovascular disease, while others have other causes,” Wyatt said. To tell.

Recently, there has been a push in the medical community to begin screening and intervening for mothers with gestational hypertension.

“This study adds to the evidence that CVD mortality cannot be predicted by HDP history alone, but must take into account multiple factors across the lifetime reproductive history,” Professor Wyatt said. He further added:

“This project highlights the need for more research into gestational hypertension, with a particular focus on the unique experiences of every pregnant woman.”