People with complicated pregnancies may suffer health problems, die early

Preterm births are a well-known hazard for babies—who can require months and sometimes years of extra care—but far less attention is paid to the people who deliver them. Now, a new analysis of more than 2 million pregnancies over 4 decades finds those parents need consideration, too: Even years later, people who experienced some common pregnancy complications had a higher risk of death. “We are starting to understand that pregnancy complications … are windows into longer term complications,” says Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the University of California San Diego who was not involved in the work, published today in JAMA Internal Medicine . Some previous studies have described associations between pregnancy complications and the pregnant parent’s health later on. In 2015, for example, an Israeli study reported that individuals who delivered a baby with very low birth weight, less than 1500 grams, had roughly double the risk of dying over the next 17 years, compared with those whose baby was 3000 to 3500 grams. Other research has found that preeclampsia, a serious condition marked by extremely high blood pressure in pregnancy, is associated with higher mortality in the years that follow. This new study aimed to go broader. Researchers led by Casey Crump, a family medicine doctor and epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston, examined five of th...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research