BY ELENI TSIGAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE PREECLAMPSIA FOUNDATION

On May 3, 2013, this article appeared in IMPATIENT OPTIMISTS, a blog of the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation.

Preeclampsia is – depending on the country– either the first, second, or third leading complication of pregnancy that causes death – either to the mother or baby. And the reported ...

SOME HEAVY FACTS

A longer article from the Preeclampsia Foundation will be posted by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWOHNN) in May. Here are the highlights. A survey or our members brought to light the following top 10 ways nurses can be sensitive and helpful to preeclampsia patients.

1) Thank you for educating me to know the symptoms and how dangerous preeclampsia can be.

2) Thank you for being willing to listen and learn from the women you care for.

Be aware of your long-term health risk factors and communicate them.

We've all seen the risk factors for cardiac disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, inactivity, obesity, smoking, and history of preeclampsia. Awareness of your own risk factors is key to managing them as you age and might lower risk of cardiac disease.

A recent analysis of the accuracy of our recall of our pregnancy histories by a team of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health showed that we may not remember our complicated pregnancies well enough for questions about them to be a useful part of a screening tool. For our recall to be useful as a clinical tool in screening for heart disease, we need to be mostly accurate in our recollections years after delivery. (Imagine a 55 year old in her internist's office this week, asked for details of her pregnancy 30 years ago...) But the analysis also showed that as severity of our pregnancy complications increased, accuracy of ...

Writing about any situation will help you gain perspective on it. Many people find they can identify and express their feelings through journaling. This expression not only contributes to our self-awareness, it also contributes to healing through the letting out of emotions, self-acceptance, and the identification of any negative self-talk patterns that we should and can intentionally replace with positive ...

If you're a new mom, your own heart health may be the furthest thing from your mind, but if you're a preeclampsia survivor, it's something you and your physician should discuss. Why? Because research has shown that preeclampsia, along with a few other pregnancy complications such as fetal growth restriction and preterm birth, may predict your future heart disease. 

Studies have found the following associations between pregnancy complications and cardiovascular disease: 

• A history of preeclampsia increases future risks of high blood pressure, heart attacks, stroke, blood clots, and kidney disease.
• Women who have repeat or severe preeclampsia, or preeclampsia accompanied by still birth are at greater risk of cardiovascular disease than women who have high blood pressure only and during a single pregnancy. 
• Women who had growth restricted babies or who delivered preterm were found to have higher blood pressure 18 years after ...

Remember the moment when you embraced maternity clothing? After a few months wearing "roomy" jeans and shirts, you made the leap into a wardrobe consisting of blouses with an empire waist. 

There are very few times in our life you wear a patient status so conspicuously. Walking around in maternity clothing informs everyone of your current status. Unlike most other conditions, random strangers remark upon your wellbeing. When things are going well, these remarks can be appreciated as well intentioned. When things are not going well, these random comments can be heartrending.

It is hard to wear our medical status in public. It is hard to bear our soul. But pregnancy is finite; we only have a few months of "showing." Sometimes we have been blessed and become the parent of a new baby and sometimes a life ends before it begins.

The body returns, but a story remains. And I ask you, "Are you showing?"

There is a patient art movement spreading around the ...

When we think about maternal deaths, visions of thin, malnourished women lying on cots in thatched-roof cots immediately come to mind, when in fact they occur right in our backyard. In the U.S., preeclampsia is one of the four most common reasons for maternal death. On an average, there is approximately 1 maternal death for every 100,000 births, but for African American women, this number triples. African American women are three times more likely to die from preeclampsia and other childbirth-related issues and no one knows why.

As our society becomes more culturally diverse, this problem will indirectly affect all of us. Our daughters and granddaughters may no longer look like us ethnically but carry genes that places them at risks for complications associated with a particular race. While we attempt to unravel the mystery of what causes preeclampsia, an equally mystifying dilemma is to determine why are African American women more at risk for developing and then dying ...

A nurse from the University of Illinois Medical Center asked the Preeclampsia Foundation, "What do you think we, as nurses, could do to support patients when they are in a situation (preeclamptic pregnancy) similar to yours?"

We wondered aloud and nearly three dozen survivors responded via Facebook and our online Community Forum to share their experiences and provide their suggestions to the nursing profession. While there was very vocal appreciation for the majority of nurses who have cared for our women, there were also many helpful suggestions. Based on patient input, here are:

Top 10 Ways Nurses Can Support Preeclampsia Patients: 

1. Know the symptoms, educate your patients. Know how dangerous preeclampsia can be, know the full breadth of possible symptoms, and be proactive about diagnosing and managing it. The Foundation's motto "Know the Symptoms, Trust Yourself" is targeted at pregnant women, but as healthcare ...

Keri developed severe preeclampsia at just 24 weeks pregnant and was forced to deliver her baby shortly thereafter. 

Her baby girl Millie was extremely premature and weighed just 1 lb. 1 oz. She needed intensive medical care and Keri was by her side day and night.

A few days after Millie's birth, Keri set up a CaringBridge site to stay in touch with loved ones. "I had so many friends, co-workers and family members who wanted to know how to support me and who were asking for information about how Millie was doing," said Keri. "One hundred percent of my time and energy - emotional, mental and physical - was being spent on my baby and I had nothing left with which to reach out to people."  

CaringBridge patient websites make is easy to share health news and receive support from everyone who cares. Using ...

The "Ask the Experts" section of the Preeclampsia Foundation's Community Forum has 318 questions answered by members of our medical board - top researchers and clinicians in hypertensive pregnancies.

Readers often visit this section, not for definitive answers to any one particular question, but to provide spark ideas about other topics or terms to search, and especially new questions to ask your doctor. The Experts answer anonymously and do not give medical advice on any specific case, but they do contribute to the ongoing discussion of preeclampsia-related topics. Information in the older links may not always reflect current understanding of the disease or today's management practices.  

Here are Forum Director Heather Curtis' top 5 tips for using our ...

Encore Public Relations was named a Bronze Stevie Winner in the PR Campaign of the Year/Community Relations category in the 9th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business on November 9 for their work with the Preeclampsia Foundation. Encore Public Relations lead strategy efforts and execution for a multi-platform campaign that raised awareness during the 2012 annual Promise Walks for Preeclampsia across the country.   

"Ironically, it was during this same weekend last year when we had the good fortune to meet Laurie and Elaine in New York City," said Eleni Tsigas, Preeclampsia Foundation's executive director. "The women were in town for another honor they were receiving and via wonderful circumstances, we were brought together at Saving Grace, our annual benefit gala."

Laura Archbold, principal of Encore Public Relations, upon receiving their award, said. "We humbly accept this honor on ...

Preeclampsia Foundation volunteers in different parts of the country have been taking advantage of Perinatal Outreach Educator Networks to disseminate information about the Preeclampsia Foundation and advocate for more patient education.

An unexpected outcome from one of these discussions came from Maripat Zeschke, RNC-EFM, MSN, LC who is the Perinatal Network Administrator at the University of Illinois Administrative Perinatal Center. She asked a simple, but powerful, question of the preeclampsia survivors who were presenting: "What do you think we, as nurses, could do to support patients when they are in a situation similar to yours?"

Zeschke said that her question "comes from a long history of being committed to patients. Nursing is the perfect blend of art and science, and being at the bedside is the essence of the art.  I've seen so many patients with devastating preeclamptic stories, and I think it's amazing when survivors can relive it on a regular ...

A recent study in the September 2012 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology took a look at the seasonal flu vaccine, recognizing that many women are concerned (check out our forum posts about it, here and here) about introducing any drugs or vaccinations during pregnancy.

During the 5-year study period, over 10,000 women received the seasonal influenza vaccine while they were pregnant, a few ...

By Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway ~ October is Patient Centric Care Month, a term you will likely see more of as our healthcare system moves further into the 21st century. What does 21st century healthcare look like? It means that all of your records will be computerized and not on paper. It means that you will receive your "chart" on a flash drive so that when if you leave your physician's office and go to a hospital, your health records remain with you. Gone will be the days when your labs will have to be repeated because no one can locate your prenatal chart. Repeating labs is not only annoying, it's costly.

"Patient Centric Care" means that the emphasis will no longer center on your physician. Or a hospital. Or an ambulatory care center. It will be centered on you, the patient. Why? Because at the end of the day, if you're not well, if the outcome was less than expected, then the system has failed. The $2.3 trillion dollars spent each year on healthcare has not ...

Professors Chris Redman and Isabel Walker, co-authors of Pre-eclampsia: The Facts (Oxford University Press 1992) and co-founders of Action on Pre-eclampsia (APEC) in the UK, are seeking input from members of the Preeclampsia Foundation for their latest book, The Pre-eclampsia Survival Guide.

The new book, also co-authored by Joyce Cowan, a midwife who is Director of New Zealand APEC (NZAPEC), will be a comprehensive guide to pre-eclampsia for women and midwives. It will cover everything from historical theories to current treatments; from causation to detection; from prevention to management. It will be rooted very firmly in the real experiences of women who have suffered pre-eclampsia - and that's where you come in.

The authors are keen to illustrate their key points with real life case histories gathered from several different parts of the world. You could be part of this process by contributing to