Preeclampsia May Lead to Heart Disease

Scientists at Yale University researching preeclampsia havefound that, even when blood pressure returns to normal afterdelivery, the condition may still increase a woman's risk for developingcardiovascular disease. Researchers studied data on37,061 women who had given birth and died in Jerusalembetween 1964 and 1976. Among that data set were 1070 womenwho had preeclampsia.

The investigators found that the women with preeclampsiawere twice as likely to die, compared with women who had nohistory of the disorder. Even after 20 years of follow-up, thewomen who had preeclampsia followed by normal birth were stillmore than twice as likely to die than were those women with nopreeclampsia history. The condition affects 5% of all pregnantwomen.