Please tell me about how your blood pressure resolved

[Fakingit36]

Hello. I am a week post partum today with beautiful DS 2. It was a tough pregnancy (age 38) with gestational diabetes and hypertension at the end that led them to induce at 37 weeks. Thankfully the delivery went fine and blood pressure was actually not bad when delivering. With DS1 I had severe preeclampsia so this time there has been a lot of BP monitoring. It went up around 35 weeks but no protein/blood preeclampsia stuff so they called it “gestational hypertension”. My question is about resolution of the blood pressure after birth. I am taking it at home twice a day and they are monitoring. It’s been a bit all over the place and went really high yesterday. Of course, this is on top of normal sleep deprivation, hormones, engorged boobs and so on. It was 150/100 and I got admitted to hospital for observation — ick !! Even then, though, it eased down with rest in the hospital and docs basically said it is what it is and I have to be patient.

Can anyone share experiences of how long it took for blood pressure to normalize? With DS1 despite the preeclampsia I never had a cuff at home so I actually don’t know how it behaved postpartum except that it was acceptable at the 6 week check. My pre pregnancy pressures were generally lower than 120/80 .

We are so delighted with our new addition but the darn blood pressure tracking is a dark cloud over each day. Thank you!

One addition: the docs don’t want to give me BP meds because they think that it will go too low at certain times of day and/or when it drops on its own.

Hi, I had pre-eclampsia almost four years ago with my first and only child. I was discharged at two weeks postnatal on labetalol.

As my dd was in NICU I was discharged on the proviso i pop into the next door maternity wing to get my BP taken every day for a week. After that I was signed off to GP, still on same meds.

Then I think I had to go to my gp practice nurse every two weeks for BP checks.

I borrowed a BP cuff monitor off FIL and started doing my own regular BP checks. I had to take the machine to the gp nurse to prove it was synced with theirs before they would accept my readings.

I was weaned off over the course of a few months. All in all, I think I was on BP meds for 6 months.

I appear to be fine now, (not that I check though).

For me the BP readings were a pain in the arse. Anything can make your BP suddenly go up: stress, worry, your baby screaming, walking to the gp to get your BP taken, worrying about your BP, even just talking!

I think BP is a tricksy measure and maybe not very informative half the time.

Can you borrow a monitor and take your own records? I was told to do it three times a day, three times each time, with a minute in between each reading, taken in silence relaxing.

Anyhow, Congratulations on your baby!

That’s helpful, thanks. I already have my own cuff which was issued to me by docs at the start of the pregnancy since I too had preeclampsia last time (this time it appears not to be preeclampsia just high BP). They have me testing twice a day. I absolutely see it go up just thinking about the cuff and it always drops a lot second reading. Right now they are saying they don’t want to prescribe meds but I guess we’ll see how long it stays high. Im trying to see this as merely a pain in the butt as you say and not more . Baby is here and healthy. My BP when not pregnant is usually on the low side so i’m just hoping it returns there. Man, pregnancy really takes a toll on the body.

It does take it's toll, in everyway.

You might not want to hear this, but pre-eclampsia has been shown as a marker of future renal conditions. I suspect I have some level of kidney damage resulting from my pregnancy.
I have had an unexplained kidney infection (not developing from a UTI) since then.

I recently came across a medical paper that stated pre-eclampsia should be considered an auto immune disease.
There's lots to think about!

Take care of yourself!

I had severe pre eclampsia in my first pregnancy with BP through the roof. It took absolutely ages for my BP to go back to normal! I was on labetalol for about four months after I had DS1 and it worried me as everyone had made it sound as though my BP would go back to normal quickly after the birth.

It did eventually settle back to normal after four months, I have been absolutely fine with my BP for the last 12+ years ever since. I'm convinced anyone would have raised blood pressure when dealing with sleep loss, the stress of worrying about BP, extra appointments etc. Hope yours resolves for you soon, and congratulations!

Thanks, that is interesting. I also had gestational diabetes in this pregnancy . I am not overweight and as far as I know did not have preexistinf blood sugar problems but all of this is a wake up call for taking better care of diet and health now that i’m at the end of having kids and will be 40 in a year and a half. These things could maybe be blessings in disguise (silver lining??).

Forewarned is forearmed!