Heart abnormalities in older Hispanic women linked to high blood pressure during pregnancy

Hispanic women diagnosed with high blood pressure for the first time during pregnancy may face a higher risk of developing abnormalities in heart function and structure later in life, a new study suggests.

The findings could have significant health implications for women who develop hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension, preeclampsia and eclampsia, researchers said. Previous studies have associated such pregnancy complications with an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and even death. The new findings suggest structural and functional changes in the heart may be what's driving that increased risk.

The changes can be detected with an echocardiogram, an ultrasound of the heart, before the outward signs and symptoms of heart disease manifest. That information could be key to early prevention of cardiovascular disease and death, though more research is needed, said Dr. Odayme Quesada, lead author of the study, published this week in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.

"Essentially, what this study tells us is that hypertension in pregnancy has lasting effects on heart health," said Quesada, a cardiologist and medical director of the Women's Heart Center and the Ginger Warner Endowed Chair in Women's Cardiovascular Health at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. The findings underscore the need for physicians to recognize that high blood pressure during pregnancy can increase heart disease risk in their patients and to consider this when evaluating women's future risk, she said.

The rate of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy more than doubled in the U.S. between 2007 and 2019, according to a 2022 study in the Journal of...