Pre-eclampsia-pregnancy induced hypertension; threats and consequences

Abstract

Pre-eclampsia is the elevated blood pressure and excess protein in the urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy in a woman who previously had normal blood pressure, a major cause of preterm birth and an early marker for future cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The objective of study is to identify the level of awareness regarding pre-eclampsia (pregnancy induced hypertension or gestational hypertension) and its relation with increasing maternal and fetal mortality rate. The questionnaire-based survey was conducted including both close & open ended questions and compared with the retrospective data among 160 respondents, in which our target was to investigate women of varying socioeconomic status & the duration of our research is almost 20 days. Statistically we found an overall poor awareness of pre-eclampsia with 26% of women surveyed having heard of it and remaining 74% were unknown to pre-eclampsia, 39% faced pre-eclampsia with its severe consequences and fetal mortality rate data showed 42% deaths stating pre-eclampsia as the major cause of it, in addition to that higher rate of maternal death i.e. 57% occurs due to pre-eclampsia subsiding other reasons as key reasons of maternal mortality. Hence it is concluded that Pre-eclampsia is a disorder of pregnancy with unknown etiology so awareness level is too low to decrease its incident & this lack of awareness translates to worse health outcomes proving pre-eclampsia as a major cause of maternal and fetal mortality and its lack of awareness increasing this risk day by day and making it a hidden threat to pregnancy.