United States: In the United States, women who have a history of general pregnancy complications are likely to be of higher mortality for early death.
More About the Recent Study
Dr. Casey Crump, the team leader and professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, stated that in the study, which was conducted on a large scale to date, “women who experienced any of five major adverse pregnancy outcomes had increased mortality risks that remained elevated more than 40 years later,” as reported by US News.
Crump’s team added, “Pregnancy has been considered a ‘natural stress test’ that may provide valuable information for understanding [women’s] future health risks.”
The study findings were published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine on April 15.
What Did the Research find?
Furthermore, the possible factors that could give a woman a high risk of pregnancy problems, that is, smoking, being overweight or obese, diabetes, and heart diseases, could also increase overall health problems.
In the most recent Texas Department’s team of scientists’ study, she looked at the data on more than 2 million Swedish women who had completed a term (singleton) delivery between 1973 and 2015. Finally, they extended their images to follow up the same population of women over the 23-year period when the women were old, on average, 52 years.
The team was most surprised to learn that gestational diabetes diagnosis in pregnancy increased the mortality probability in the follow-up period by 52 percent, and when such a diagnosis occurred in the pregnancy, they found it 52 percent higher with respect to death.
Thus, the risk of pregnancy-related death jumped by more than four times as high for women who gave birth either prematurely or with the baby having low body weight, the study results showed.
Preeclampsia, a life-threatening condition that arises in late pregnancy from a significant rise in blood pressure, was linked with a 13 percent higher likelihood of early death, according to the investigators.
Crump noted that all the risks “remained elevated even 30 to 46 years after delivery.”
Furthermore, the study scientists said that these findings could be beneficial for women, as “nearly 30% of all women experience an adverse pregnancy outcome during their reproductive years,” as reported by US News.
Risks Related to Pregnancy Complications
Pregnancy complications increased the risk of fatalities from various disorders.
For example, any of the complications caused the women’s mortality rate from cardiovascular death to be anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 times higher than women who did not have a history of complications, the study found.
The risk of dying from cancer or respiratory illnesses doubled for women who delivered full-term normal babies or increased by 20 percent for those born prematurely, and their chances of death from diabetes also increased by the same rate.
Having one or more complications that could occur during pregnancy raised the existing risks even higher.
In women who experienced two or three pregnancy complications, the odds of death doubled by 56 percent and 84 percent, respectively, compared to those whose deliveries showed no signs of complications, researchers indicated.
This suggests that primary care physicians should be informed of any pregnancy problems their patients experience during their next visit. This way, women can receive “early (preventive) actions,” potentially reducing the rate of illness and prolonging their lives.