PE or not and how about Aspirin?

[onesock]

Hi and welcome Mark! I am curious as to the dosage of aspirin that the doctor prescribed for your wife, as it does not even come in 100mg...only 81mg (baby aspirin) 160mg and 325mg. I would double check on that. I do know that it thins the blood and have heard many women say that they discontinued using it prior to delivery to avoid bleeding issues. If you do decide to take it, it can cause a little upset tummy in some people, but at a small dosage, your wife may not have this side effect. I have been told numerous times that the bp machines at drug/grocery stores are not entirely accurate and having worked in a retail pharmacy and trying to "fix" the machine, the calibration is literally pushing a button to reset the machine. I had no idea what I was doing and we had a lot of people getting wacky readings. I would not trust them. I used a wrist monitor in my second pregnancy and if used properly, I usually got pretty good readings. I always took it to my appointments to make sure that the readings I was getting matched those at the office. Maybe the doctor has an opinion as well. Best of luck to you and keep us posted. :)

[markbures]

Thanks for the info about the store machines. We are going to buy a blood pressure monitor ourselves for home. A friend of ours is a doctor who has volunteered to help show us how.

We don't live in the US - here 100mg is baby aspirin.

We had good news on the urine test - no protein detected! So, going to focus on monitoring blood pressure and do kick counts for now. Still waiting to hear what the original 'high' blood pressure reading was.

[onesock]

I am sorry, I just assumed that you were in the US! Best of luck to you and make sure and keep us all posted :)

[markbures]

Pressure reading today was 100/60. At this point, it looks we do not yet meet either of the two main criteria: "at least 2 BP readings of 140/90 or higher..at least a few hours apart AND 300mg of protein, or more in a 24 hour urine catch." All we are really left with is the weight gain and the notches. I understand that that the notches are indicative of potential development of preeclampsia and that, given this possibility, we definitely should be taking aspirin to keep blood pressure down. We will be doing the urine test once every 15 days and checking blood pressure regularly. Going to check with the doc about moving up the frequency of consultations. Any thoughts?

[heather j]

Good to hear, Mark! Definitely stay on top of things as they can change quickly if they should change at all. I think upping the frequency of visits is a very good idea given the notching, etc. You may want to ask your doctor about the notching basically correcting itself. I've heard before that this can happen as well. Her bps look really good -- I hope they remain that way!

Best to you all,

[markbures]

Bought the semi-automatic blood pressure device and it works like a charm. Blood pressure still lookin' good!

[kara]

Excellent news!! Keep us posted on her progress!

[markbures]

Isabella was born after 36 1/2 weeks, on October 26, weighing 5 1/2 pounds. Baby and mother are doing fine. There were no apparent complications related to preeclampsia. Thank you for all your help and support!

[heather j]

Wonderful news! Congratulations!

[sarab]

Wahoo, Mark! Many congratulations to you and your wife! "Baby and mother are doing fine" is about the best news we can hear around here, and to add that there were no complications from PE is the icing on the cake.

Way to go, Dad!