La preeclampsia it is a disease that occurs only during pregnancy. It affects around 5-10% of pregnant women around the 20th week of pregnancy, although it can also occur before or even during or after childbirth. What causes this disease is Hypertension (high blood pressure), can be mild, moderate or severe and progress quickly or slowly. Can complicate pregnancy, and put your baby at risk if it is not treated in time.
What Causes Preeclampsia?
Preeclampsia can cause serious health problems for both mom and baby. As we saw above, its effects mainly on the mother are on blood pressure, but it can also cause damage to the kidneys, liver, brain, placenta and other organs. In the baby it can cause growth problems, little amniotic fluid and placental abruption. It can lead to premature labor or even loss of pregnancy.
Normally most women, about 75% of the cases that suffer from it, are mild cases that occur a little before delivery and that progress favorably with treatment. The earlier it occurs during pregnancy and its degree of severity, the more risk of serious complications for both.
What symptoms does preeclampsia have?
In its beginnings it can go unnoticed since nothing is felt. More advanced will depend a lot on the woman, but the most common symptoms are bloating, nausea, and weight gain. Symptoms that are usually attributed to the pregnancy itself.
If you notice a sudden swelling on the face, hands, around the eyes, or a weight gain of more than 2 kilos in a week inform your doctor so that they do the opportune controls to you. In severe pre-eclampsia you may feel severe headaches, life disturbances, shortness of breath, and pain in the upper abdomen.
How is it diagnosed?
What your doctor will do to find out whether or not you have pre-eclampsia is to first take your blood pressure and take a urine test to see the protein levels. If you are both high, you most likely have pre-eclampsia. You will have more tests to confirm the diagnosis.
Who tends to suffer the most from pre-eclampsia?
They affect many factors that can lead to risk of pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. These include:
- New mothers.
- If you have had pre-eclampsia in previous pregnancies.
- Be under 20 years old and over 40 years old.
- If you have chronic hypertension.
- In pregnancies of 2 or more babies.
- It can be inherited genetically, if a close relative has suffered from it before, we have a better chance of suffering from it as well.
- Higher risk for IVF pregnancies than natural pregnancies.
- Overweight women with diabetes.
- Smoking.
- Suffering from stress.
- Suffering from kidney or immunological diseases or suffering from coagulation disorders.
It does not mean that if we have several of the above factors we are going to have preeclampsia, but rather that these variables are related with the disease.
How to prevent preeclampsia during pregnancy?
The best thing you can do to control yourself during pregnancy is attend all prenatal visits to confirm that all is well. Otherwise, if preeclampsia is detected, it is best to treat it as soon as possible. Most of the time it is nothing more than something mild that with medical treatment comes to fruition.
If you are in the week 37 and you have preeclampsia, surely you will cause labor, especially if the effacement of the cervix begins. Yes, still you have not reached week 37 and both of you are fine and stable you won't have to give birth so soon. Most likely you enter to be able to control you better, trying that the baby is as much time as possible inside your womb. If it is very mild, they will send you home, checking your blood pressure from time to time. In any case, the recommended thing is some rest and rest.
Because remember ... it is always best to keep your medical check-ups up to date to prevent any problems during pregnancy.