The study included the maternal and fetal data of 18 million women between the ages 15 to 44 (2014 to 2018) from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
‘Heart health of a woman before her pregnancy is a strong predictor of labor complications. It is found that the presence of each additional cardiovascular risk factor raised the likelihood of an adverse pregnancy outcome such as maternal intensive care unit (ICU) admission, preterm birth, low birth weight, and fetal death.
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Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Pregnancy
The team analyzed the presence of four cardiovascular risk factors – smoking, unhealthy body weight, hypertension, and diabetes before pregnancy in the women.
It was found that more than 60% of women had one or more pre-pregnancy cardiovascular risk factors, with 52.5%, 7.3%, 0.3%, and 0.02% having 1, 2, 3 and 4 risk factors, respectively. The presence of each additional risk factor raised the likelihood of an adverse pregnancy outcome such as maternal intensive care unit (ICU) admission, preterm birth, low birth weight, and fetal death.
“In reality, not all pregnancies are planned, but ideally we would evaluate women well in advance of becoming pregnant, so there is time to optimize their health. We also need to shift our focus toward prioritizing and promoting women’s health as a society – so instead of just identifying hypertension, we prevent blood pressure from becoming elevated in the first place,” says corresponding author Dr. Sadiya Khan, assistant professor of medicine and preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
However, the study affirms the need for a more comprehensive pre-pregnancy cardiovascular assessment rather than individual risk factors.
Source: Medindia
