A potentially life-threatening condition that affects pregnant women and their babies is on the rise – and doctors admit to being baffled by it.
Preeclampsia – a condition characterized by high blood pressure, swelling and protein in the urine – has increased by nearly one-third in the United States during the past 10 years, a new study by the National Institutes of Health says.
“It’s one of the greatest mysteries in women’s health,” said Steven Goldstein, an obstetrician/gynecologist at New York University Medical Center.
“We know it’s common in women who are very old and very young, particularly those having their first baby. But there are still plenty of women who get preeclampsia who don’t fit into that category.”
The NIH study shows preeclampsia affects six to eight percent of all pregnancies in the United States and is responsible for about 16 percent of American pregnancy related deaths a year.
A diagnosis of preeclampsia (also known as toxemia) sent Laura Bush to bed late in her pregnancy and forced playwright Wendy Wasserstein to deliver her daughter nine weeks early.
“Inside Edition” host Deborah Norville was also diagnosed with preeclampsia in 1991.
Doctors say they’re baffled by preeclampsia. They don’t know what causes it. They don’t know how to prevent it. The only known cure is delivery, which, if done prematurely, can endanger the baby’s health.
“As we see more and more older mothers and more multiple births, we see an increase in preeclampsia cases,” said Phyllis August, chief of the hypertension division at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Younger women can also be affected. Kerry McGovern, 27, who was diagnosed with preeclampsia last September during her fourth month of pregnancy, almost died four months later.
McGovern needed to be induced a month early – despite taking to bed for three months – and, when doctors gave her an epidural, her blood pressure plummeted, stopping her baby’s heart rate and she lost consciousnessness.
“They had to stop the labor and give me oxygen,” she recalls. “They were getting ready to rush me in for a cesarean when finally my blood pressure stabilized.”
McGovern regained consciousness and gave birth to Sierra, a baby girl.