Background Overview of High Blood Pressure in Pregnancy.
Preeclampsia is one of the high blood pressure-related disorders of pregnancy and it is a very common disease. It is often called the "silent killer" because it can damage your heart, kidney, and brain, even though you feel no symptoms.
Blood pressure is the force exerted by circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels and constitutes one of the principal vital signs. If your blood pressure is normal, you can work with your health care team to keep it that way.
If your blood pressure is too high, you need treatment to prevent damage to your body’s organs. High blood pressure is dangerous because it makes the heart work too hard, and contributes to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).
Blood pressure is a measure of how hard the blood pushes against the walls of your arteries as it moves through your body. Doctors do not know what causes high blood pressure in 90 to 95 percent of people who have it.
In about 10 percent of patients, the disease can be traced to specific causes: heredity, kidney abnormalities, adrenal gland tumors, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, hormone abnormalities, use of birth control pills, pregnancy or a congenital narrowing of the aorta.
The other possible root cause of higher blood pressure is cigarette or tobacco smoking. The nicotine in cigarettes and other tobacco products causes your blood vessels to constrict and your heart to beat faster, which temporarily raises your blood pressure.
Alcohol may also cause blood pressure to rise high in some people. The reason why it is important to detect high blood pressure in pregnancy earlier is not only that mothers get sick from the high blood pressure conditions. But it also affect the outcome of the baby and the pregnancy itself leading to premature deliveries, stillbirth, and other fetal complications and maternal complications as well.
Researchers with Alberta health services and the University of Calgary are testing a new prediction algorithm that takes into account a combination of personal history, body mass index, blood pressure, ultrasound findings and indicators of placental function in order to determine preeclampsia.
Their study it's called the prediction study and it's looking to see if doctors/ medical practitioners can actually predict which women are at higher risk of developing preeclampsia or high blood pressure in pregnancy.
If the can predict that and identify who is at risk, doctors will be able to institute some treatments to prevent these women from developing preeclampsia. Another thing that the researchers are doing at the University of Calgary that is unique in terms of this particular study is they are actually able to look at a mother's vascular function.
What that means is looking at a mom's blood vessels that are not related to the placenta, or just by looking at her fingertip or arm to see if we can better predict who's going to develop preeclampsia.
Researchers have been looking for many years different ways to potentially predict and prevent preeclampsia and now there rumors that there is a test or there has been a test that has been developed in the UK, which seems to have very high accuracy predicting who is going to develop the most severe early-onset form of preeclampsia.
Treatment may depend on how low or high your blood pressure is, and whether you have other pre-existing medical problems such as diabetes, and or whether any damage has been caused to your organs.
Treatment begins with changes you can make to your lifestyle to help reduce your blood pressure and lower your risk of heart diseases. You want to achieve your treatment goal, but sometimes it seems your blood pressure just doesn't want to change.
It is important that you and your medical practitioner carefully review your treatment and lifestyle to see what the matter really is. For hypertension that is not controlled by diet and exercise, new treatment guidelines for high blood pressure recommends that most patients be started on a thiazide-type diuretic unless there is a compelling need for different medications.
Proper Diet Guidelines for High Blood Pressure in Pregnancy.
Obesity, heavy alcohol consumption and lack of activity are the main factors causing high blood pressure in pregnancy. Too much body fat leads to an increased risk of health problems through clogging the blood vessels with cholesterol.
The successful treatment of high blood pressure starts with following a diet that is specifically aimed at reducing high blood pressure. If you already have high blood pressure, you cannot reverse it to low permanently.
Instead, you can control your high blood pressure by taking prescribed medication and amending your diet. Research has shown that a high blood pressure diet can effectively prevent blood pressure from rising above normal.
Today, most of our meals still contain more fat than the government recommends, and most of the vending machines and fast-food options do not meet the nutritional standards set by the U.S. government. With fast-food snacks available at every corner, it's often hard to switch to a healthy diet.
High blood pressure diets are designed to decrease sodium, increase potassium, and lessen calories. This way you will maintain a reasonable weight. This diet consists of foods that are delicious and low in fat such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, and lean proteins.
Here are some simple tips to help you follow your high blood pressure diet guidelines:
- Eat a healthy breakfast. Eating in the morning will increase your energy and will help you avoid snacks before lunch. A quick breakfast can be as easy as a bowl of cereal, a slice of whole-wheat toast, cereal bar or fresh fruit.
- When following your high blood pressure diet, your daily food intake must include foods from five food groups:
• Grains: Always try eating a whole wheat version of your favorite bread, be it a loaf, a bagel or a roll.
• Vegetables: Eat tomatoes, peppers, baby carrots, and other colorful vegetables as many as you like. The brighter the vegetable, the more antioxidant vitamin A it contains.
• Fruits: Fruits should be eaten fresh. Fruits have fiber and healthy calories, and you will want to eat less during the day. Juice has fructose which fills up with energy. That’s why juice should become a part of a healthy breakfast along with cereal.
• Dairy: Try low-fat or non-fat milk, non-fat chocolate milk, and low-fat cheese. Basically, any type of cottage cheese or yogurt goes well with fruit.
Emphasizing healthy food choices can help you enjoy your meals without excessive fat, sugar, and calories. Healthy food choices can be a carry-over from a healthy menu and meal planning at home while managing your high blood pressure with diet.
Switching to a diet without excessive fat and salt and staying fit will help you lose weight and can help prevent or at least delay heart-related problems. Along with monitoring and medication treatment, a high blood pressure diet can help control your blood pressure and reduce your risk of stroke, kidney and heart failure, and heart attack.
See your doctor before making any diet or lifestyle changes.
This disease is really deadly. Thanks for a great article.
ReplyDeleteThanks, and you are right High Blood Pressure is realy deadly.
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