Aspirin - WWYD

[pinkie1982]

My father and grandmother have hypertension.
My sister had pre eclampsia and a subsequent pulmonary embolism with her first child, also had high BP when pregnant with second child.
The midwife prescribed me aspirin. I was told I could either take that everyday or be monitored with regular blood pressure checks. My
BP is fine and always has been.
What would you do?
Shall I wait to discuss with her at 16w appointment?

I would go with regular blood pressure monitoring if you have never had blood pressure issues before. You can always start medication at a later date if required

I have managed hypertension and my mum and brother have it too. My mum had pre-eclampsia and I am therefore at a high risk if developing pre-eclampsia too. I was prescribed 75mg aspirin daily from 12 weeks and have my blood pressure/urine checked by my midwife every two weeks. As far as I am aware there are no known downsides to taking it but a well established up side in reducing the risk of pre-eclampsia which you absolutely don't want. I am not sure why they would prescribe instead of BP checks, if they think you are high risk you should have both!

Why wouldn't you take it?

if she doesn't have hypertension and has had no previous issues with blood pressure then why would she need to take it?

I am no expert but my understanding is the risk of pre-eclampsia has a family link. Whilst OP might not have a history of raised BP her family do and an history of actual pre-eclampsia. I can't understand why her ME seems to be hedging her bets with aspirin or monitoring - I would have thought you were at higher risk or not.

I'd definitely take the aspirin & otherwise forget about it. Daily BP checks & discussion would drive my BP sharply upwards.

I had pre-eclampsia first time round and have been asking about aspirin in this pregnancy but the consultant said they would rather not prescribe as it's a blood-thinner and comes with it's own side-effects. I felt a bit fobbed off but they are monitoring me quite regularly and I have my fingers crossed it does not reoccur as they said it does not always happen again.

I never got offered it and I had high bmi in my first and second pregnancy. I also get white coat hypertension and and get high blood pressure readings in gp/hospital situations.

It's a fairly new thing to offer, I wasn't offered it in my first pregnancy 6 years ago but I was last year. The piece of research that it comes from is really good according to my scientist friend, I'll see if she can send me a link to it.

I have a family history of pre eclampsia, and I had it in my first pregnancy, this time I just had high blood pressure, whether that was down to the aspirin I don't know, but I had no hesitation about taking the aspirin as high blood pressure is a killer.

Meant to add I had not BP problems before hand.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/pre-eclampsia-pregnant.aspx#close - this does say family history and first pregnancy puts you in the high risk category

Thanks to those who have replied. Mixed answers.
Yes this isn't first pregnancy.
I've never had BP problems.
No other appointment until my 16w one. I am currently 14+2.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way, take the aspirin.

It isn't going to cause you or baby any harm, but without it you could end up very ill.

With my first pregnancy everything was fine, until labour, I had eclamptic seizures in labour (had never even heard of Eclampsia, the stage after pre-eclampsia) and spent a week in intensive care.

My son was very poorly when he was born and we both very nearly died.

I took aspirin in my second pregnant, daughter was born at 38 weeks, I developed mild pre-eclampsia.

I am pregnant with DC3 and was told to take it from the day I found out I was pregnant (blood pressure never went down from first birth)

I was young, fit and healthy, normal weight and no reason to think this would happen but it did.

It's like saying why take folic acid? because you want what's best for baby and you will do anything to reduce the risks of bad things happening.

Sorry for the horror story, but if it means what happened to me doesn't happen to you then I am happy to scare you all.