Risk of pre-eclampsia in first and subsequent preg

[caryn]

...The risk of pre-eclampsia was 4.1% in the first pregnancy and 1.7% in later pregnancies overall. However, the risk was 14.7% in the second pregnancy for women who had had pre-eclampsia in their first pregnancy and 31.9% for women who had had pre-eclampsia in the previous two pregnancies. The risk for multiparous women without a history of pre-eclampsia was around 1%. The incidence of pre-eclampsia associated with delivery before 34 weeks' gestation was 0.42% in primiparous women, 0.11% in multiparous women without a history of pre-eclampsia, and 6.8% and 12.5% in women who had had one or two previous pregnancies affected, respectively. The proportion of women who went on to have a further pregnancy was 4-5% lower after having a pregnancy with any pre-eclampsia but over 10% lower if pre-eclampsia was associated with very preterm delivery... Findings are consistent with the existence of two distinct conditions: a severe recurrent early onset type affected by chronic factors, genetic or environmental, and a milder sporadic form affected by transient factors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19541696

So if you delivered before 34 weeks, you're one in about two hundred, and you're 10% less likely to have another pregnancy than someone without that history. That last bit is probably both because you and your partner are scared sh*tless *and* because some preeclamptics develop immune responses to subsequent pregnancies that interfere with placentation enough that subsequent pregnancies miscarry.

If you want to read the full text of the study, it is linked from the abstract, to the right of the journal's name, in a box reading "full text -- free".

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[jgrumet]

Karen,

do you know how many PE pregnancies one single woman has had? I've always wondered if there is a world record...hah I title I would not like to have.

I was wondering if inevitably you were have to have one PE free pregnancy if you just kept having kids.

[caryn]

I don't know, but I do know that it's one of the primary things that killed women in pregnancy historically, just as it is today.

The full-text talks about how there are probably two different things going on here: the mild kind that doesn't recur, probably because of spiral artery remodelling and a more proper response to familiar antigens, and then the kind that's predicated on some sort of underlying, sometimes genetic, condition that predisposes *all* of that woman's pregnancies to go kablooey...

[patty]

quote:

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Originally posted by jgrumet

Karen,

do you know how many PE pregnancies one single woman has had? I've always wondered if there is a world record...hah I title I would not like to have.

I was wondering if inevitably you were have to have one PE free pregnancy if you just kept having kids.

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Hmm I did get one out of the 5 that never progressed to pre-e but I was delivered at 38 weeks and was heading in that direction. I don't think you can keep having kids to lower your risk. I don't know what the world record is but my docs certainly acted like I was unusal when I had it for the 4th time. They sort of deferred to me as the expert saying you know when you are getting sicker and you need to let us know. I think most women are scared to keep having pregancies when they are struck with pre-e. So that is why you don't see women getting it over and over multiple times a lot. I am not so bright but in my defense I thought things were getting better each time until I hit the 4th pregnancy. The 5th sent me over the edge and I made the decision to have my tubes tied after beign told I would have a bad outcome if I got pregnant again :( I do worry about the long term effects to my body as far as my kidneys and heart and things having put my body through pre-e so many times too.