High blood pressure can be dangerous any time, but there are high blood pressure pregnancy dangers that can be even more serious. Before you panic, it’s possible to have a healthy baby even if you do have high blood pressure.
But it’s important to monitor your blood pressure throughout your pregnancy. Some women do develop high blood pressure as a result of pregnancy and this is called gestational hypertension. The results can be damaging to your body as well as cause low birth weight.
The most serious complication of high blood pressure is called preeclampsia. This is a condition where your blood pressure is high and you begin to develop kidney damage. As a result there are proteins found in the urine and your body can’t get rid of toxins effectively.
Women with preeclampsia are monitored carefully because this condition can lead to eclampsia which is deadly. With eclampsia, you can have seizures, kidney failure, liver problems, and damage to the brain. This can cause the death of mothers.
In addition to problems for the mother, the baby can also suffer when eclampsia is involved. It can cause low birth weight, early labor, and even stillbirth. Babies can also suffer from birth defects from this disorder.
Unlike other forms of high blood pressure, there’s not anything that can be done to prevent preeclampsia when a woman is pregnant. The cure for this disorder is really just to deliver the baby so that the body can go back to normal.
However, some women who develop preeclampsia do have to remain on medication for high blood pressure if it doesn?t go completely back to normal. But there are some known risk factors that may make it more likely for you to develop blood pressure pregnancy dangers.
For example, women who are older having their first child are more at risk than younger women. This is one of the reasons preeclampsia has become more common in recent years ? women are waiting longer to have children.
You’re more likely to develop preeclampsia if you have high blood pressure before you get pregnant or if you’re obese before getting pregnant. If you’ve developed high blood pressure or preeclampsia with prior pregnancies, you’re more likely to develop it again.
Also, other health conditions such as diabetes and lupus could put you more at risk for preeclampsia during pregnancy. The best thing to do to prevent this problem is to be at your best health before getting pregnant. But even women in good health have a slight risk of blood pressure pregnancy dangers.
