Made to Mom Episode #7: Preeclampsia

Mar 24

In this episode I’m talking about reducing the risk of preeclampsia in pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a physiologic stress on the cardiovascular system as it undergoes many changes to accommodate the increase in blood volume and cardiac output. Preeclampsia is one of the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, with most cases occurring in healthy women who’ve never been pregnant before and with no obvious risk factors.
At-risk women should be identified early in pregnancy, ideally before 16 weeks so tools like aspirin can be used to reduce the risk of developing preeclampsia.
High risk factors are: preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy, multifetal pregnancy (e.g. twins), chronic hypertension, type 1 or 2 diabetes, kidney disease, autoimmune disorder (e.g. lupus, APS), combination of moderare risk factors
Moderate-Risk Factors: First pregnancy, obesity, mother or sister had preeclampsia, Black or African American race, lower income, maternal age 35 or older, personal history factors (e.g. low birthweight or small for gestational age, previous adverse pregnancy outcome, more than 10 year pregnancy interval), IVF pregnancy
Other tools like exercise, vitamin D, and calcium may be used to help reduce the risk.

Made to Mom Episode #6: Exercise in Pregnancy & the Postpartum