Blood pressure patterns in early pregnancy predicted preeclampsia and gestational hypertension better

Routine blood pressure readings recorded in the first half of pregnancy can be divided into 6 distinct patterns that can effectively stratify patients by their risk of developing preeclampsia and gestational hypertension later in pregnancy, Kaiser Permanente researchers found.

The study showed that 6 pregnancy blood pressure trajectories seen within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy along with clinical, social, and behavioral risk factors can accurately predict and stratify1(remove “vs” in image) risk of preeclampsia and gestational hypertension in low- to moderate-risk patients. Three of the early pregnancy blood pressure trajectories identified 74% of the patients who went on to develop preeclampsia later in their pregnancy. The prediction model worked equally well in the white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian patients included in the study.

The study used routine clinical blood pressure measurements and clinical data from the electronic medical records of close to 250,000 healthy pregnant patients. The new study used data from approximately 75,000 women not included in the prior study. 2The patients studied were considered to be low- to moderate-risk by current U.S. Preventive Services Task Force risk criteria — a group for whom it has been challenging to identify individual risk of preeclampsia.

Reference: Early Pregnancy Systolic Blood Pressure Patterns Predict Early- and Later-onset Preeclampsia and Gestational Hypertension Among Ostensibly Low-to-Moderate Risk Groups, Journal of the American Heart Association