This article appeared in the May 2013 edition of PRE-EMPT NEWS.

On May 27, 2013, PRE-EMPT in collaboration with MCHIP, organized “Preeclampsia 2013: Global Symposium” as a satellite event to the Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Nadine Brunk, a Certified Nurse-Midwife, started a program called Midwives for Haiti (MFH). We’ve been talking to Nadine about how we can extend our work in patient and community education to prenatal care settings like those found in Haiti.  I feel like we have much to learn from Nadine, as one minute with her blog will show you. Recently, she shared this amazing story with us.

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 ...

By Dr. Anne Wallis ~ Who remembers the first season ER episode "Love's Labours Lost"? The answer: pretty much anyone who ever watched ER! In the episode, a pregnant woman presents to the emergency room with a complaint of bladder problems, has a seizure and later dies. This was my first exposure to the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Eclampsia is, thankfully, rare, but it carries a high case fatality rate for the mother and/or the infant. Gestational hypertension and preeclampsia are far more common, affecting between 5% and 8% of all pregnancies in the US. Moreover, these conditions are on the rise and globally, these conditions are a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death.

Obstetric providers are acutely aware of the dangers of preeclampsia because of its potential severity and rapidity of onset and progression, making high-quality prenatal ...

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 ...

The hypertensive complications of pregnancy are divided into four distinct classifications: Preeclampsia/eclampsia, Chronic hypertension, preeclampsia superimposed on chronic hypertension, and gestational hypertension. Many people are perplexed by the term "superimposed preeclampsia" which is preeclampsia complicating hypertension of another cause, most commonly chronic or "essential" hypertension. However women with hypertension associated with ...

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the "health reform law." This means that implementation of this landmark legislation can continue to move forward. However, the law continues to be the subject of debate through this year's presidential and congressional election cycle, and depending on the election results could be altered by Congress and the White House in the future.  As it currently stands, the law directly benefits childbearing women and newborns by:

• prohibiting the use of pregnancy as a preexisting condition by health insurance providers;
• widening access to certified nurse-midwives by eliminating inequities in how they are reimbursed under Medicare;
• paying for home visits by nurses for at-risk families during or after ...

That was my goal with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I was given to present one of three President's Program lectures at the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists' Annual Clinical Meeting.  

"Patient Perspectives on Preeclampsia" - or as I joked, "lessons from this side of the stirrups" - was well-received by the standing-room-only crowd in the main auditorium of the San Diego Convention Center.  More importantly, the many comments I received after the lecture satisfied me that I achieved my objective - to reach their hearts with compelling, real-life stories illustrating the impact preeclampsia has on mothers, fathers, and babies; and to reach their minds by inspiring clinical practice behaviors that include educating each and every expectant mother with non-alarmist, but sound information about the ...

May and Mother's Day are so intertwined that it's hard to think about one without the other, especially here at the Preeclampsia Foundation, where we've built a nationwide campaign at www.promisewalk.org/campaign to get the word out about preeclampsia - the "thing" that for many survivors turned our entrance into motherhood into a nightmare.

I believe celebrating mothers is a commemoration of extremes. Not just because preeclampsia is an extreme condition, but because the mothers I am ...

Is there a nutritional connection to preeclampsia? That idea seems plausible at first, as when the blood samples of women have been analyzed, some researchers have found altered levels of various vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, preeclamptic women have altered patterns of weight gain during pregnancy; and obese women are more likely to develop preeclampsia.

Such considerations may lead one to speculate that certain diets may prevent or reverse the disease, in which case the appropriate diet becomes a therapeutic intervention. However the best research to date suggests this just isn't so.