On October 18, the Iowa Section of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses hosted Preeclampsia: A Team Approach to help provide healthcare providers with a greater understanding of the disease. More than 70 participants enjoyed the viewing of the 2009 Chairman's Hope Award for Outstanding Service video highlighting John and Brenda Warner, opening comments by Sue Gehlsen , Executive Director of Women's Services at Iowa Health, presentations by Joseph Hwang, MD, FACOG and George Lederhaas, MD on hypertension in pregnancy and ...

111th Congress, Second Session

Congress has adjourned until after the November 2nd election.  For the next few weeks, members of Congress will be focused, almost exclusively, on campaigning for re-election.  Congress is expected to return in the third week of November for a “lame duck” session - a post-election legislative session during which members convene to wrap up unfinished business before the end of the calendar year.  Because these sessions include those members who failed to win reelection and some who are retiring, lame duck sessions are not usually very productive and can be very volatile and difficult to predict.

While the exact agenda for the upcoming lame duck session is still unclear, measures that will likely be taken up include a food safety bill and certain tax provisions.  In addition, Congress must address how to fund the federal government for the next fiscal year as they have yet to finalize all of the various bills that fund current ...

Raising Awareness of Hypertension (H. Res. 1656) - Status: Introduced.  Sponsor: Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL).  Aims to increase awareness of hypertension and reduce its prevalence in the United States through education, research, community programs, culturally competent strategies, and efforts to reduce the excess salt content in foods.  The resolution notes that women with high blood pressure are more likely to experience certain complications during pregnancy, including kidney and other organ damage, low birth weight, early delivery, stillbirth, and maternal ...

PREEMIE Act (Prematurity Research Expansion and Education for Mothers who Deliver Infants Early Act) (S. 3906) -  Status:  Introduced.  Sponsors:  Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT).  Reauthorizes programs Congress established in 2006 to address premature birth.   Calls for expanding work conducted at the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and Services Administration to conduct research and improve access to prenatal care.  Among its provisions, the legislation creates trans-disciplinary research centers, will result in additional epidemiological studies, and supports telemedicine services to improve access to care.  Expands and supports federal activities conducted under the 2006 statute, which would otherwise expire at the end of fiscal year 2011 (September 30, 2011).  (Text of legislation is ...

National Nurse-Managed Health Clinic Week (S. Res. 643) – Status:  Passed Senate.  Sponsor:  Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI).  Recognizes the role that nurse-managed clinics play in the health care system, designating the week of October 3 as “National Nurse-Managed Health Clinic Week.” States that clinics offer a broad scope of services that may improve access to care in communities, including prenatal ...

Nationally Enhancing the Wellbeing of Babies through Outreach and Research Now (NEWBORN) Act (H.R. 3470) – Status:  Passed House.  Sponsor: Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN).  Authorizes $10 million for Fiscal Year 2011 and $50 million between 2011 and 2015 for a grant program to create, implement, and oversee pilot programs in areas with high rates of infant ...

The Preeclampsia Foundation announced today that Ms. Jill Siegel of Chicago, IL is the 2010 recipient of its annual Hope Award for Volunteer of the Year. This prestigious award will be presented to Ms. Siegel at its annual benefit gala, Saving Grace – A Night of Hope Around the World, on Saturday, November 6, at the Olympic Fairmont Hotel in Seattle, Washington. The award recognizes an individual who epitomizes the true spirit of volunteerism and has made significant contributions to the Foundation.

Eleni Tsigas, Executive Director of the Preeclampsia Foundation, said, “It’s hard to identify Jill’s most significant contribution as she has been instrumental in so many areas. In 2009, she served as our Saving Grace chair, organizing, motivating and arranging everything for our annual fundraising gala and throughout 2010 has done an overwhelming ...

What a whirlwind Walk season it has been! The final 2010 Promise Walk concluded just a week ago. This year, a newly formed National Walk Team (NWT) assisted coordinators
around the country in planning memorable and successful walks. The NWT also created a new and dynamic website (www.promisewalk.org) that enabled Walk Coordinators and participants to easily register and raise donations for their local Promise Walk. 
 
More than 30 volunteer coordinators produced fabulous local events - 24 Walks across the U.S. taking place between April and August, including inaugural Walks in Atlanta and Chicago and adding a second Walk location in both California and Iowa. This volume represents a 60% increase over last year. The 24 Walks collected approximately $168,000, which is more than a 150% increase over 2009. There ...

Last month, a team from the University of Alberta reported in the journal Hypertension on a method to determine that a woman is at high risk of developing preeclampsia.  While this method may or may not be developed into a screening test in the future, it confirmed that changes in the metabolism and the vasculature of women who go on to develop preeclampsia can be detected at 15 weeks gestation.
 
Two Preeclampsia Foundation members were involved in media coverage on the topic and we are very grateful to them for bringing a human face to the stories about preeclampsia. Because of the press conference and media efforts of the University, a lot of lay press picked up the story and we are fortunate that the Foundation was mentioned in several of those stories.  The research findings while seemingly exciting to a lay public are far from commercial realization and would need more validation for most governmental oversight bodies (e.g., FDA).  Our message of "cautious ...

Research into preeclampsia and its relationship to the long-term health of mother and baby reveals both good news and bad news for preeclampsia survivors.
 
Evidence is unequivocal now that women who have experienced preeclampsia, particularly severe or early onset preeclampsia, are at a significantly increased risk for cardiovascular problems later in life compared to women with a history of healthy pregnancies. The "take home lesson" for preeclampsia survivors is to establish a healthy lifestyle (weight loss, exercise, no smoking) and to discuss cardiovascular assessment and follow up with your health care provider.
 
"There are very few identified risk factors for later life heart disease in women; preeclampsia is one of the few warning signs we'll get and we should take advantage of it," explained Executive Director Eleni Tsigas.
 
One study demonstrated that women who have a history of preeclampsia experienced an increased risk of ...

Vitamin D and Microchimerisms:

Could the sun really have something to do with preeclampsia?
"Maternal vitamin D deficiency may be an independent risk factor for preeclampsia. Vitamin D supplementation in early pregnancy should be explored for preventing preeclampsia and promoting neonatal well-being," reads a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism in 2007. Although some of us who had our babies in, say, Portland, Oregon, where the sun rarely shines, would love to claim Vitamin D deficiency, other preeclampsia survivors sweltered under the Arizona or California sun. If you think this might be a possible therapy to explore, talk to your health care professional and check out the discussions in our Community Forum on this topic.
 
Micro-what?
Researchers have found that women with preeclampsia, which causes high blood pressure in ...

  Although the literature is scant, research has shown that lack of patient information is correlated to poor health outcomes.  Our own research shows that fewer than half of pregnant women are educated about the signs and symptoms of preeclampsia by their health care providers.  (As an aside, we've been working with epidemiologists at the University of Iowa to conduct deeper analysis of our data; this research has been deemed compelling enough that we'll be sharing our findings via an oral presentation at the ISSHP World Congress in Melbourne, Australia.)

Thus, patient education is high on our list of priorities. This includes involving a broad spectrum of health care providers in this effort.

There are many occasions where pregnant women come in ...

In April, a New York Times article cited a study from the medical journal The Lancet that indicated for the first time in decades, researchers are seeing a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980.

Several reasons were noted for the improvement: lower pregnancy rates in some countries; higher income, which improves nutrition and access to health ...

Blood pressure cuffs, urine dipsticks, and the scale: for decades, these simple tools have aided health care providers in the detection of preeclampsia. As a woman's pregnancy progresses, her prenatal visits come closer together, so that her weight gain, urine, and blood pressure readings can be monitored for signs of the disorder. However, this system isn't perfect. While preeclampsia most frequently occurs at term, it can sometimes strike much earlier. The disorder can sometimes progress rapidly between appointments, or the warning signs can be too subtle to trigger alarm.

But soon, clinicians may have another method for detecting preeclampsia: a reliable screening test that can spot changes in the bloodstream relatively early in pregnancy, warning healthcare providers when preeclampsia may occur before term.

In the past eight years, a substantial amount ...

Minneapolis, MN – September 24, 2009 – The Preeclampsia Foundation announced today that Ms. Kara Boeldt is the 2009 recipient of its annual Hope Award for Volunteer of the Year. This prestigious award will be presented to Ms. Boeldt at its annual benefit gala, Saving Grace – A Night of Hope, on Saturday, October 24, at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. The award recognizes an individual who epitomizes the true spirit of volunteerism and has made significant contributions to the Foundation.

Eleni Tsigas, Executive Director of the Preeclampsia Foundation, said, “It’s hard to identify Kara’s most significant contribution as she has been instrumental in so many areas. This past year she served as our National Walk Coordinator, organizing, motivating and supporting the work of two dozen local walk coordinators across the country. This is our largest awareness event of the year.”

Boeldt also has served for several years as a moderator ...

Preeclampsia will feature prominently in a new feature film set to go into production in March of 2009. How did this come to be? Is the writer a female preeclampsia survivor? Did the director lose a loved one to the disease?

Neither case is true.

What is true is that the writers were in search of an illness that would occur during pregnancy. Their research led them to learn about preeclampsia and the Preeclampsia Foundation. At the time the writers, Craig Weintraub, Brian Steinbach, and Joey O’Bryan, had never heard of it, which was fine with them since they did not want to incorporate something that was really well known. That was in 2005, around the time of the first Saving Grace gala in Minneapo­lis. Weintraub, the film’s Director, and his partners were still writing the story at the time, so they attended the event to learn more from survivors and medical practitio­ners. Once they learned, as Weintraub puts it, “How could you not want to become more ...

Say “matrix” and visions of a kick-boxing, black-clad Keanu Reeves may come to mind. No, this is not a movie review.

Every day, a small army of Harvard Medical School researchers reports to The Life Sci­ences Building in Boston’s Longwood Medi­cal Area. It’s new, ultra high-tech. It towers over its neighboring hospitals and research facilities and, with its clean lines, giant glass panels and sweeping marble stairway, would be a set designer’s dream for another sequel to “The Matrix”. The men and women who spend so much of their lives in this futuristic workplace are pulmonologists, oncologists, nephrologists, neurologists; they are natives of France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, India, China, Japan, Turkey, and the U.S. They study and work under the leadership of Dr. Raghu Kalluri, Chief of the Division of Matrix Biology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Composed of proteins and found through­out the body, the matrix serves as a platform for ...

The Preeclampsia Foundation recently “signed on” to a letter to Congress that was gener­ated by the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research. You may know that we are members of “Friends of NIH (National Institute of Health)” and it is through that association we are able to make our voice heard in such matters. Make no mistake about it, we are friends of NIH . . . but as most of us know, even the best of friends can have disagreements. However, before I go there, let’s address the areas in which the Preeclampsia Foundation strongly supports the NIH.

These are clearly tough economic times, and it seems there is a “bail out” or “re­covery package” (depending on whom you are talking to) for almost everyone, and we want to make sure that NIH is not left in the cold. Accordingly, we have supported the recommendation that an additional $1.9 billion be allocated for NIH in the current economic packages that are being debated in Congress. Now, before you get ...