Cardiovascular Health During Pregnancy: Future Health Implications for Mothers

Interconception Care for Primary Care Providers: Consensus Recommendations on Preconception and Postpartum Management of Reproductive-Age Patients With Medical Comorbidities

Severe maternal morbidity and mortality continue to increase in the United States, largely owing to chronic and newly diagnosed medical comorbidities. Interconception care, or care and management of medical conditions between pregnancies, can improve chronic disease control before, during, and after pregnancy. It is a crucial and time-sensitive intervention that can decrease maternal morbidity and mortality and improve overall health. Despite these potential benefits, interconception care has not been well implemented by the primary care community. Furthermore, there is a lack of guidelines for optimizing preconception chronic disease, risk stratifying postpartum chronic diseases, and recommending general collaborative management principles for reproductive-age patients in the period between pregnancies. As a result, many primary care providers, especially those without obstetric training, are unclear about their specific role in interconception care and may be unsure of effective methods for collaborating with obstetric care providers. In particular, internal medicine physicians, the largest group of primary care physicians, may lack sufficient clinical exposure to medical conditions in the obstetric population during their residency training and may feel uncomfortable in caring for these patients in their subsequent practice.

The objective of this article is to review concepts around interconception care, focusing specifically on preconception care for patients with chronic medical conditions (eg, chronic hypertension, chronic diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, venous thromboembolism, and obesity) and postpartum care for those with medically complicated pregnancies (eg, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, gestational diabetes mellitus, excessive gestational weight gain, peripartum cardiomyopathy, and peripartum mood disorders). We also provide a pragmatic checklist for preconception and postpartum management.

Maternal Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Offspring Risk of Hypertension: A Population-Based Cohort and Sibling Study

BACKGROUND

Women with a history of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are at increased risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Offspring from pregnancies complicated by HDP also have worse cardiometabolic status in childhood and young adulthood, but the offspring risk of clinical hypertension in adulthood is largely unknown.

METHODS

We studied 13,893 first-born adult offspring (49.4% female) who attended a structured population-based primary care visit (The Västerbotten Health Survey) at age 40 years in Sweden between 1994 and 2013. Data on maternal HDP were collected from a population-based birth register. We investigated the association between maternal HDP and the risk of adult offspring hypertension and worse cardiometabolic risk factor status utilizing multivariable poisson and linear regression models. We also conducted a sibling comparison, which inherently accounted for familial factors shared by siblings (N = 135).

RESULTS

Offspring participants of women with HDP (N = 383, 2.8%) had increased relative risk of hypertension (1.67, 95% confidence interval: 1.38, 2.01) and also higher mean body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and worse 2-hour 75 g oral glucose tolerance test result at age 40 years. No difference was observed for serum cholesterol. Point estimates for the cardiometabolic risk factors were attenuated in the sibling analyses.

CONCLUSION

Offspring born to mothers with a history of HDP are on an adverse cardiometabolic trajectory and should be considered as concomitant targets for primordial prevention of hypertension in the maternal post-pregnancy period.

Postpregnancy BMI in the Progression From Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy to Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE

To study the extent to which BMI after pregnancy adds to the elevated risk of postpregnancy type 2 diabetes in women with a history of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) (preeclampsia or gestational hypertension).

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

We used data from the Nurses' Health Study II, a prospective cohort study. In women aged 45-54 years without prior gestational diabetes mellitus, we investigated the interaction between BMI and HDP history on the risk of type 2 diabetes. For clinical and public health relevance, we focused on additive interaction. The main outcome measure was the relative excess risk due to interaction calculated from multivariable Cox proportional hazards models using normal weight as the reference group.

RESULTS

In total, 6,563 (11.7%) of 56,159 participants had a history of HDP and 1,341 women developed type 2 diabetes during 436,333 person-years. BMI was a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes regardless of HDP history. However, there was evidence of an additive interaction between BMI and HDP for the risk of type 2 diabetes (P = 0.004). The attributable proportion of risk due to the interaction ranged from 0.12 (95% CI -0.22, 0.46) in women who were overweight to 0.36 (95% CI 0.13, 0.59) in women with obesity class I.

CONCLUSIONS

Maintaining a healthy weight may be of even greater importance in women with a history of HDP, compared with other women with a history of only normotensive pregnancies, to reduce midlife risk of type 2 diabetes.

Midlife development of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in women by history of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy

BACKGROUND

Women with history of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) are at increased risk of early onset cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes (T2D). We aimed to investigate the extent to which HDP is also associated with midlife development of T2D and hypertension above and beyond established risk factors.

METHODS

We included parous women who attended population-based structured clinical visits at age 50 and 60 years in Sweden 1991-2013 (N = 6587). Women with prior diabetes mellitus, stroke, or ischemic heart disease at age 50 years were excluded. Data on reproductive history were collected from registries. To study the association between history of HDP and the between-visits development of T2D, hypertension, and clinical risk factors of cardiometabolic disease (body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, and total cholesterol), we utilized multivariable adjusted regression models (logistic, log binomial, and linear regression, respectively). Models included data on outcome risk factors at age 50 years, e.g. BMI, 75 g 2 h oral glucose tolerance test result, and mean arterial pressure, respectively.

RESULTS

Between ages 50 and 60 years, 5.8% of initially disease-free women developed T2D and 31.6% developed hypertension. History of HDP was associated with increased risk of developing T2D between age 50 and 60 years even when adjusting for risk factors, including BMI, at age 50 years (odds ratio (OR) 1.96, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.29-2.98). By contrast, the higher risk of developing hypertension observed in women with history of HDP (relative risk (RR) 1.47, 95% CI 1.22-1.78) was attenuated when adjusted for risk factors (RR 1.09, 95% CI 0.94-1.25). Participants with a history of HDP had higher mean BMI and blood pressure at age 50 years, with levels roughly corresponding to those observed at age 60 years in unaffected women.

CONCLUSIONS

Women with history of HDP are not only at higher risk of cardiometabolic disease during their reproductive years, but HDP is also associated with midlife T2D development above and beyond established risk factors.