Women who experience pregnancy complications have a greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease later in life, according to a new study.
The research conducted at the Public Health Institute’s Child Health and Development Studies, enrolled more than 15,000 pregnant women to determine a link between pregnancy complications and deaths from heart disease.
After the follow up period, a total of 368 of these women died of cardiovascular disease, with an average age of 66. The study showed certain combinations increased the risk of heart disease death. For example, the women who delivered their baby too early were about 7 times more likely to die of CVD later on than those who did not face this complication.
The women who had pre-eclampsia, hypertension occurring after 20 weeks of gestation, were nearly 6 times more likely to die from heart disease than those who did not have uncontrolled blood pressure.
In addition, the researchers also identified two new pregnancy complications that predispose women to heart disease death. When glycosuria was evident in the urine, there was a four times greater risk of cardiovascular death. And the participants who had an abnormal decline in hemoglobin levels were almost twice to die from heart disease.
“One of the wonderful things about cardiovascular medicine is the enormous progress that has been made in preventing death in men and women. These pregnancy complications are early signs that tell you to pay attention to risk factors that you can control,” said Dr. Barbara A. Cohen, lead researcher.
Pregnancy complications can be classified into two groups, maternal problems and fetal problems. The maternal issues include hyperemesis gravidarum, pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, deep vein thrombosis, anemia, urinary incontinence and postpartum depression.
The fetal problems causing pregnancy complications are ectopic pregnancy, placental abruption and multiple pregnancies such as monozygotic, dizygotic or plyzygotic. IMAGE/ glamcheck.com
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