When to monitor Bp at home?

[holly3372@msn.com]

Hi everyone. Wanted your input on this one. I am now 12 weeks along. know pre-e usually shows after 20 weeks but wanted to know when you all think is a good time to start monitoring at home daily and how often? Once a day, twice? My bp went up last time at around 24 weeks . Thank you.

[cgoodi1]

I started monitoring once every few days before pregnancy in order to get a really good idea as to what is my "normal" blood pressure. I just found out I'm pregnant so I'm going to begin monitoring more often around 12 weeks. I'll probably start taking it once in the morning when I wake up and then once at night after supper.

[holly3372@msn.com]

You are pregnant!! Wow congrats! so scary I know, but exciting! Thank you, I will start now too.

[MomTimesThree]

cgoodi- CONGRATS!

I also started taking it loosely right after we confirmed our pregnancy and didn't write anything down, which earned me scoldings from my MFM. We did twice a day, once morning, once evening and I kept a log that I brought along with me to every appointment.

Wishing you both very uneventful long pregnancies!

[sam10]

In my first trimester I checked a few times a week in the morning right after I woke up and/or if I felt weird (stressed, sick, tired), just so see where I was at. At my appointment with my doc at around 17 weeks my doc asked me to start monitoring. Since then I check in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings and/or when I feel off or scared.

I recently found an app which I now use to keep my BP records. It draws a nice curve:-) and I can send an overview via email to the doc if needed.

Congrats to all the new pregnancies. Keeping my fingers crossed for all of you for a smooth ride

[angieb]

Congrats on the new pregnancies!

With Luke, I started monitoring my BP at home about 3 times a day starting around 10 weeks until delivery. Honestly, it was overkill. It didn't really reassure me no matter how normal my blood pressure was and oh so many times my blood pressure was "slightly elevated" to me when it was *really* just fine. (By that I mean, my normal was around 115/70, so if I got a reading that was 125/78, I would think "uh oh, trouble is coming!" I was way too OCD about it and if anything monitoring my blood pressure so closely caused me more stress than it was worth (when it never or VERY rarely got "high"...like maybe 2 readings out hundreds, and of course those 2 readings were when I was really stressed or whatever). I developed HELLP without technically having pre-e though my doctors consider HELLP "severe pre-e", so having a normal blood pressure never really reassured me since it was normal when things were really bad the first time, and on the flip side, when it got a little bit high (or what I deemed high), it stressed me out. So, just trying to say, TRY not to be obsessive about it. I know that's really hard when you've had a loss from this horrible disease. I think that in general taking it once or twice a day, assuming you aren't having any other symptoms, is more than enough. (I'm actually not monitoring it at home at all yet this pregnancy and I'm 23 wks, I did a few times earlier on so I have a pretty good idea that my baseline is still the same. It's just too much hassle with a toddler running around trying to push the buttons on the monitor whenever I try to take it. If I start having headaches or symptoms then I'll start taking it, but until then, I'm going to assume things are normal and trust my doctors.)