What: A study of over 800 low-income Hispanic women found that those who had clinically normal blood pressure throughout their pregnancy and did not experience a drop in second trimester had a nearly five times higher risk of developing high blood pressure in the five years after birth.

Key line: “’This group of women would not be identified as having higher long-term hypertension risk by any of the current clinical criteria, since their blood pressure remained below diagnostic thresholds and most did not have other traditional risk factors,’ said Shohreh Farzan, PhD, associate professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study’s senior author. The findings suggest that tracking blood pressure patterns during pregnancy could help identify this underrecognized group and plan interventions that may prevent cardiovascular disease, said the study’s first author, Zhongzheng (Jason) Niu, PhD.”

Source: Keck School of Medicine USC