My mother-in- law had preeclampsia with both her pregnancies (including my husband). Many years later she was diagnosed with chronic hypertension and hypothyroidism. She's not overweight but was a smoker for a long time which could have contributed, plus has a family history of heart disease. Her heart is ok though now she has regular checkups with a cardiologist.

My paternal grandmother had pre-e with my dad and late in life was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and lupus. No heart disease in her family that we know of.

I became a chronic hypertensive after my second pregnancy five years ago. Seven years after my first bout of preeclampsia. I am overweight though and there is a family history of heart disease on my mothers side. My grandmother had hypothyroidism & congestive heart failure (even subclinical hypothyroidism can increase cardiovascular risk factors) and my grandfather was a chronic hypertensive for decades.

Turning up the temp a bit on this issue as we're working with several organizations and investigators to figure out how we should be counseling our preeclamptics for long term health (besides of course, our nifty patient education brochure which has gotten lots of thumbs up from experts)...

so my question is have any of you had your babies long enough ago (say more than 5 years ago) and are NOW dealing with any kind of heart health issues? Do you know anybody who fits the bill and perhaps does not have all those other lovely risk factors such as family history?

JScruggs-please do let us know!

I had an EKG after my first pg, but that turned out normal. Can a heart doctor do an x-ray of some sort to look at the left ventricle of the heart to see if it was affected?

I went through HELLP with my son in November of 2010. Prior to my pregnancy I had always had heart palpitations, but I would get them just once in a while. A few months after his birth, after I was off the labetalol and nifedipine I was placed on, my heart palpitations returned, but instead of a few a year it was more like a few a month. So finally last month I saw a doctor about it. He did an EKG which was all normal except for my lack of a p-wave. So then I wore a heart monitor for several weeks and recorded my experiences. It seems I am experiencing inappropriate sinus tachycardia...the p-wave thing I am not so sure about...perhaps a junctional rhythm thing, but I don't have all the answers just yet. Anyways, I had not been connecting the HELLP with the tachycardia episodes until now, but I am thinking they are related. My blood pressure returned to normal completely, and yet I had to start on labetalol again to control the palpitations. The inappropriate sinus tachycardia doesn't seem to be anything terribly serious, fortunately, but I am not sure what it means about my health 10-20 years down the line. As I get more answers, I will let you know just in case it can help anyone with any questions they may have.

It's asymptomatic, which means that whether or not your pressures are high, you have a kind of early heart failure. Whether or not that's something that should be screened for if you're asymptomatic and following proactive recommendations, I do not know.

Is it still an issue if the person never develops high bp again?

PE causes the heart issues, possibly because we are predisposed to develop them. The form is basically "busted left ventricle" because of the higher pressures we sustain, from what I can tell. It says At 1 year postpartum, asymptomatic left ventricular moderate-severe dysfunction/hypertrophy was significantly higher in preterm preeclampsia (56%) compared with term preeclampsia (14%) or matched controls (8%; P values <0.001). The risk of developing essential hypertension within 2 years was significantly higher in both preterm preeclamptic women and those with persistent left ventricular moderate-severe abnormal function/geometry.

So over half of us have *persistent* - which means it stuck around postpartum - left ventricular hypertrophy, which means the left ventricle had to work hard, got bigger, and created functional problems with how the heart pumps blood.

I believe pre-e is a risk factor for peripartum cardiomyopathy - form of congestive heart failure, usually temporary. It seems like pre-e accelerates/unmasks htn. I had an EKG and Echocardigram done and was able to reach almost my baseline exercise capacity by re-joining the gym after my pre-e pregnancy. I see a cardiologist for chronic htn once a year. He did not feel I needed a stress test or anything else.

So my question is, does the pre-e cause the heart issues, or do the heart issues cause the pre-e?

My OB just had me get an EKG, but I haven't gotten the results yet. She is very cautious and has had me get every test imaginable to get a baseline of my health for this pregnancy, in case I develop PE again. She ordered it when she realized my nephrologist hadn't ordered one yet. I was seeing a nephrologist instead of a cardiologist for my post-PE hypertension care because I only have one kidney and need to have it checked out once a year anyway, but now my OB is managing all my care. My mom jokes that she is only ordering all these tests because I have insurance that will pay for them, but they do make me feel better (at least I know she is taking it seriously).