United States: More females are being diagnosed with life-threatening complications during pregnancy but are not taken through treatment, a study conducted this week reveals.
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This problem is preventable and even people in positions of authority have been advising providers on what they should do and one official has referred to it as an opportunity lost to safeguard heart health.
Major findings The researchers established that there was an escalation of persistent high blood pressure among pregnant women by a proportionate measure of 2 over a fourteen-year period.
On the other hand, the prescription and utilization of medicines that can cure it, also known as hypertension, did not move up at all, even as maternal mortality surged recently.
According to Stephanie Leonard, an assistant professor in maternal-fetal medicine and obstetrics at Stanford School of Medicine and the study’s lead author, “Untreated high blood pressure can have really serious consequences for both someone who’s pregnant and the baby in the short term, as well as over their whole life,” as USA Today reported.
Cases of chronic hypertension in pregnant women
In the study published in an American Heart Association journal, the number of pregnant women with chronic hypertension increased from 2007 to 2021; in fact, pregnant women with this condition seem to be two times more than before, yet only sixty percent of them received medications for this condition.
Chronic high blood pressure is when a person has readings of 140/90 mm Hg or more prior to pregnancy or up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the National Institute of Health (NIH) that funded the study.
Women with high blood pressure during pregnancy are prone to organ injury; hence, the baby may be delivered before the full term, or it may be born at low weight.
The staff has identified hypertension as a risk factor for the mother and the baby because preterm delivery is a major issue in the development of children.
It can also prove to be deadly for the mothers who don’t seek treatment for it, and an issue, according to the US health regulators, that should not be the case.
New federal data released today indicate that the deaths of women who suffered through childbirth have reduced after the initial high rates that characterized the beginning of the pandemic.
Women of color and Indigenous women have higher mortality rates relative to white women during childbirth or in the postnatal period. Black women have a higher death rate and are three times more likely to die compared to white women, as evidenced by the study conducted by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to Candice A. Price, a program director at NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, who researches women’s health, “We need to better understand gaps in treatment for chronic hypertension, especially in these high-risk groups,” as USA Today reported.
“If we’re not detecting and treating chronic hypertension early, that’s a missed opportunity for protecting heart health during and after pregnancy,” added A. Price.