Women who experience high blood pressure after giving birth may be at a higher risk for chronic hypertension, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings were publicized in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
368 women with normal blood pressure before giving birth were implicated in a study. The participants were followed for six to 18 months after the birth of their newborn, assessing the blood pressure of the women at their home.
In totality, close to 6,000 blood pressure measurements were gathered by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.
What the study uncovered was that close to half of the women experienced high blood pressure during their first postpartum visit.
“By leveraging data from our widely scaled postpartum hypertension remote monitoring program, we were able to discover that a woman’s blood pressure in the first six weeks after childbirth appears to be an important indicator of whether she is likely to develop chronic hypertension six to 18 months later,” Eesha Dave, a lead author of the study, stated in a news release.
“…Women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy and who continue to have elevated blood pressure postpartum are at an increased risk for developing chronic hypertension,” the study determined.
The results were presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s annual meeting.
