Placental problems in pregnancy indicate future heart disease risk

Placental problems in pregnancy indicate future heart disease risk

LONDON - A new study appearing in the November 19 issue of the medical journal The Lancet says that women who have placental problems during their pregnancy have double the risk of suffering from premature heart troubles than women who do not have the same problems.

The report published by Canadian researchers says that a condition called as maternal placental syndrome is responsible for placing the woman at risk for the development of early heart disease.

This syndrome includes conditions like pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy) as well as certain situations like placenta abruption and placental infarction where blood vessels within the placenta become blocked. Placental syndromes occur in conditions like excessive smoking, obesity, insulin resistance, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These very same factors are responsible for the development of heart disease as well.

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In the current study called the CHAMPS (Cardiovascular Health After Maternal Placental Syndromes, Dr. Joel G. Ray, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at St. Michael's Hospital of the University of Toronto and colleagues tracked more than a million women and monitored them for placental problems. "We looked at their future risk of having heart disease or stroke or blockage of one of the arteries to the legs. We found that women who had placental syndromes had double the risk of developing premature cardiovascular disease, compared with women who didn't have one of those maternal placental syndromes," Ray said.

Among the 1.03 million women monitored in the study, around 75,380 were diagnosed with maternal placental syndrome. The average age of these women was 28. Dr. Ray said that obesity before pregnancy is the single biggest culprit in the development of placental problems and consequently heart disease.

"We think that a lot of the risk for maternal placental syndromes is coming from the presence of obesity before pregnancy," Ray said adding that simple modifications to the lifestyle would help women overcome these problems, "The metabolic state, to a degree, is determined by their body weight and what they eat. This study shows that there is a window for women to modify their health while they are young."