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Cardiovascular Health During Pregnancy: Future Health Implications for Mothers

  • Cardiovascular Disease (R Foraker, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Healthy pregnancy requires profound maternal vascular, immune, and metabolic adaptations to support placentation and fetal growth. It is now well established that an impaired ability to mount these adaptations contributes to adverse pregnancy outcomes. Pregnancy now can be viewed as a “stress test,” with adverse pregnancy outcomes being a harbinger of excess cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Thus, we review the current evidence that links pregnancy features to maternal CVD risk.

Recent Findings

The most recent work demonstrates that cardiovascular risk is detectable within 1 to 5 years after pregnancy. Rates of hypertension as soon as 1 year post-partum are quite high in women with gestational hypertension, and cardiac structure differences can be detected as soon as 5 years post-partum following preeclampsia.

Summary

Pregnancy complications can identify CVD risk during the reproductive years and provide opportunities to improve women’s health. We summarize the next steps needed to leverage pregnancy as a window to improved maternal cardiovascular health.

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Correspondence to J. M. Catov.

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Conflict of Interest

J. M. Catov and J. Rich-Edwards each declare no potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Bairey Merz reports other from Annenberg Center for Health Science (lecture), other from American Diabetes Association (lecture), other from DCCT/EDIC (investigators meeting), other from Expert Exchange (lectures), other from Japanese Circulation Society (lectures), other from Kaiser (lectures), other from Mayo (lecture), other from Northwestern (young investigators grant review), other from Pacific Medical Center (lecture), other from Practice Point Communications (lectures), other from Pri-Med (lectures), other from Sanofi (consulting), other from University of Colorado (lecture), other from UCSF (lecture) Ð, other from University of Utah (lecture), other from Women’s Health Congress (lecture), other from WomenHeart (lecture), other from ACRWH (NIH advisory council), other from New York University (lecture), other from San Bernardino 18th Cardiology Symposium (lecture), other from UCSD (lecture), other from NIH-CASE (grant review study section), grants from WISE HFpEF, grants from RWISE, grants from Microvascular, grants from Normal Control, grants from FAMRI, from NHLBI Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International (Consultant), outside the submitted work.

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Catov, J.M., Bairey-Merz, N. & Rich-Edwards, J. Cardiovascular Health During Pregnancy: Future Health Implications for Mothers. Curr Epidemiol Rep 4, 232–238 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-017-0116-x

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