Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy complicate almost 7 - 10 % of all pregnancies. The dyad of hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks of gestation is referred to as pre-eclampsia. It is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality and is also associated with increased perinatal problems. Despite intensive research over the years the exact cause of pre-eclampsia remains unknown. Nevert...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that pre-eclampsia is a risk factor for cerebral palsy mediated through preterm birth and being born small for gestational age. DESIGN Population based cohort study. SETTING Clinical data from the Norwegian Cerebral Palsy Registry were linked with perinatal data prospectively recorded by the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. PARTICIPANTS All singleton babi...

OBJECTIVE To determine if change in maternal angiogenic biomarkers between the first and second trimesters predicts pre-eclampsia in low-risk nulliparous women. DESIGN A nested case-control study of change in maternal plasma soluble Flt-1 (sFlt-1), soluble endoglin (sEng) and placenta growth factor (PlGF). We studied 158 pregnancies complicated by pre-eclampsia and 468 normotensive nonprotein...

BACKGROUND Maternal mortality is of global public health concern and >99 % of maternal deaths occur in less developed countries. The common causes of direct maternal death are hemorrhage, sepsis and pre-eclampsia/eclampsia. In Pakistan, pre-eclampsia/eclampsia deaths represents one-third of maternal deaths reported at the tertiary care hospital settings. This study explored community perception...

BACKGROUND It has been well documented that pre-eclampsia and unexplained fetal growth restriction (FGR) have a common etiological background, but little is known about their linkage at the molecular level. The aim of this study was to further investigate the mechanisms underlying pre-eclampsia and unexplained FGR. METHODS We analyzed differentially expressed genes in placental tissue from se...

OBJECTIVES To examine whether the maternal serum concentration of the soluble receptor-1 of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-R1) at 11-13 weeks of gestation in pregnancies that subsequently develop pre-eclampsia is different from that in women without this complication. METHODS The concentration of TNF-R1 at 11 + 0 to 13 + 6 weeks was measured in samples from 128 cases that subsequently devel...

OBJECTIVES To determine the relationship between pre-eclampsia, small-for-gestational age (SGA) and gestational age at delivery, and the effect of this relationship on the prediction of pre-eclampsia by uterine artery Doppler imaging. METHODS This was a multicenter prospective Doppler study of the uterine artery at 22-24 weeks of gestation in unselected women with singleton pregnancies. RES...

Eclampsia is still a major cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality in developing countries but postpartum eclampsia has rarely been described. We present a case in which a 22-year-old Brazilian woman without a typical history of pre-eclampsia presented with eclampsia after the fourth postpartum day. The clinical diagnosis was corroborated by angiography and magnetic resonance imaging of the ...

Pre-eclampsia is a major cause of maternal and fetal mortality in pregnancy. The identification of genetic variants which predispose to pre-eclampsia demands large DNA collections from affected mothers and babies and controls, with reliable supporting phenotypic data. The InterPregGen study has assembled a consortium of researchers from Europe, Central Asia and South America with the aim of elu...

Hypertension in pregnancy complicates approximately 7-10% of pregnancies and remains a major cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality [1,2]. Severe pre-eclampsia/eclampsia (generalized convulsions with pre-eclampsia) which occurs in approximately 1-3 in 1000 women is thought to be a terminal progression of pre-eclampsia1 [1]. The maternal mortality rate for eclampsia is 2-3 cases...