'High BP during pregnancy may up heart disease risk later'

Women who experience high blood pressure during pregnancy face an increased risk of heart disease and hypertension later in life, a study warns.

Hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated.

"This study highlights the need for long-term follow-up of women with a history of hypertension during pregnancy to provide early management of risk factors for cardiovascular disease," said Sonia Grandi, PhD candidate at McGill University in Canada.

In the study, among 146,748 women with a first pregnancy and a follow-up of about four-and-a-half years, 997 were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease and 6,812 developed hypertension.
 

Compared with women without high blood pressure during pregnancy, those with hypertension during pregnancy had a 2.2-times higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 5.6-times higher risk of developing hypertension after pregnancy.

Subsequent pregnancies did not appear to influence these associations, said Grandi, lead author of the study published in the journal Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology.