Pregnancy complications and sisters at higher cardiovascular disease risk may need preventive care.

Adverse pregnancy outcomes, familial predisposition, and cardiovascular risk: a Swedish nationwide study
Go to source). It is well known that complications during pregnancy, such as high blood pressure and premature labour, increase the risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. However, it is unknown whether this association can be explained by familial factors. Researchers have investigated this through a registry study of Swedish women who gave birth to their first child between 1992 and 2019.
‘#Pregnancy complications and #heartdisease: is it just the pregnancy, or something more? Genes & environment also play a role in the long-term #cardiovascular risk after a complicated pregnancy.’

The researchers identified women who had experienced pregnancy complications and their sisters who had given birth during the same period but had not experienced a pregnancy complication. 




Sisters Share Increased Cardiovascular Risk After Complicated Pregnancies
They compared the risk of developing cardiovascular disease for the women with complicated pregnancies, their sisters with uncomplicated pregnancies and an unrelated control group. The study showed that the sisters also had an almost 40 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease compared to the women in the control group.“It may be important to identify these women early to offer preventive treatment for pregnancy complications as well as lifestyle counselling and follow-up for cardiovascular disease risk,” says Ängla Mantel.
The study was funded by SFOepi at Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation. There are no reported conflicts of interest.
Reference:
- Adverse pregnancy outcomes, familial predisposition, and cardiovascular risk: a Swedish nationwide study - (https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehae889/7989610?login=false)