For Long-Term Maternal Outcomes of Pregnancies Complicated by Hypertension, Delivery Timing Matters

Pregnancy complicated by gestational hypertension or preeclampsia doubles a woman's lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease. Current guidelines recommend expectantly managing patients with preeclampsia and gestational hypertension until 34 weeks' gestation when severe disease features are present and ≤37 weeks in the absence of such features. However, the long-term maternal effects of these timeframes for expectant management remain unknown.

In a retrospective cohort from a New York state inpatient database (2005–2014) including >22,000 patients, investigators assessed “long-term” outcomes (average follow-up, 5.2 years) among patients delivering within 0–7 days of diagnosis of preeclampsia or gestational hypertension compared with those who…