Overview
- Researchers analyzed 218,141 live births from 157,606 patients across 22 Intermountain Health hospitals from 2017 to 2024, with average follow-up of about five years.
- Women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy faced markedly higher risks: heart failure 3–13-fold, stroke 2–17-fold, heart attack 3–7-fold, coronary artery disease 2–7-fold, and death about 1–4-fold.
- Risk rose with disorder severity, with the highest event rates seen when chronic hypertension was compounded by severe conditions such as eclampsia.
- Roughly 19.7% of patients were diagnosed with a hypertensive disorder, most often in a first pregnancy, with gestational hypertension and preeclampsia the most common types.
- Patients with hypertensive disorders had more baseline risk factors, and Intermountain is promoting cross-disciplinary care and structured postnatal surveillance to reduce early cardiovascular events.