Infections, clotting disorders, chronic hypertension all found to increase risk
FRIDAY, May 26, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Several factors raise the risk of pregnancy-related stroke in women with preeclampsia, according to a study published online May 25 in Stroke.
Researchers looked at data for 88,857 women who developed preeclampsia between 2003 and 2012. Of those, 197 had a pregnancy-related stroke.
The researchers found that women who had a pregnancy-related stroke were seven times more likely to have severe preeclampsia or eclampsia (odds ratio [OR], 7.2). They were also three times more likely to arrive at the hospital with infections (OR, 3.0), chronic hypertension (OR, 3.2), prothrombotic states (OR, 3.5), and coagulopathies (OR, 3.1).
“Preeclampsia is a very common disorder, and a lot of people are not aware of its association with stroke,” lead author Eliza Miller, M.D., of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said in a journal news release. “Women with preeclampsia should take any neurological symptoms, such as severe headache, very seriously, especially during the postpartum period. This needs to be a major focus of future stroke research in women.”
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