Any positive stories for conceiving/ pregnancy/ birth with pre existing high blood pressure?

[Smudgenut]

I’d love to have a baby but am worried about my high blood pressure. I currently take two tablets to control it.

This would be my first baby so really I’m just looking for some reassurance that it’s all possible :)

How long do you need to change tablets before trying for a baby ?

Thankyou !

Hello am currently 19 weeks pregnant and have high blood pressure. As it happens I had stopped my meds before getting pregnant due to having bad headaches but that was a luckily coincidence. I’d check with your GP about your meds before ttc. On the upside in early to mid pregnancy your blood pressure goes down so I’ve been fine so far. I am under consultant care because of it and have a medium risk of preeclampsia but am being monitored every two weeks so feel confident about pregnancy. Don’t let it put you off and def talk to your doctor about it. I had high blood pressure in my last pregnancy at the end and had it for about 6 months after. At the time they thought it was pre eclampsia but now reckon it was just gestational high blood pressure. All the doc is currently putting me on is an aspirin a day to help prevent Pre eclampsia. Good luck if you are trying and from my point of view I can assure you it’s not impossible to do as long as you have the right care 😀

I have PIH and have been given labetalol which didn't work, then nifedipine which was perfect. However there was some supply issue so moved to methyldopa which has kept me right down.

At 16 weeks bp was 160/110 ish. Since proper meds kicked in it's been 130/70 ish like clockwork.

Talk to your GP about switching to one of the pregnancy friendly drugs and they'll monitor you closely. Good luck!

Should say I'm now 34 weeks and BP has been perfect since about 18 weeks.

Thankyou both - very encouraging ✨

Anyone else been through the same?

I got high bp in my first pregnancy and have had it ever since, including during my second pregnancy. Both pregnancies went fine but the second one was much better as I Knew more about it and was better able to advocate for myself. (I had other risk factors too). As other posters have mentioned, speak to your doctor before trying to conceive in case you need to be on different medication when pregnant. (I am pregnant again and am on methyldopa and labetalol but in a previous pregnancy methyldopa wasn’t doing anything for me so I had niphedipene). You are likely to be under consultant-led care and there is a chance you may be induced from 38 weeks if they are concerned about pre-eclampsia (I was induced for both mine and it was all fine). After the birth, be prepared for a spike in bp at about day 3 - you need to be monitored through that by the community midwives, so be prepared for them to not know about the day 3 spike. In my first pregnancy I was readmitted to hospital at that point and it was absolutely horrendous. In my second pregnancy, I knew about the spike and there was a plan in place to manage it without the readmission.
If you can get your bp taken manually rather than by an automatic machine, it’s a good idea - the machines can be inaccurate when bp is high. I was under a brilliant special bp antenatal clinic and they only ever checked manually absolutely said they would only discharge after birth on the basis of a manual reading.
Also - I did find that in my first term pregnancy sometimes someone new at my GP or at the antenatal appointments would take my blood pressure, freak out, and insist I presented myself to a&e immediately. By my 2nd baby I got used to asking them to ring the obstetrics team at the hospital to see what they said.
Be prepared for lots of poor bp-taking. Eg: talking to you during it, moving your arm during it, pressing the cuff to keep it closed.
Lastly - get a monitor for home use (and take it to your GP to make sure it’s reading the same as their machine). It will come in extremely handy if you find yourself in a phase when someone tells you to get your bp checked daily.

Hi I had high blood pressure (and kidney failure I say this as chances are you should never be as bad as I was!) before I got pregnant accidentally. By 7 weeks they moved me from my usual needs to labetalol and aspirin. Labetalol worked wonders and I was on 200mg until 32 weeks. At this point they increased the dosage until 35 weeks when they introduced nifidepine. That got me to 36 weeks when they decided to deliver. My blood pressure was high for about 10 days post partum. The highest Reading was 172 over 105. However I was given a 95% chance of pre-eclampsia and never got it! I would probably say to go for it as it is worth everything.

Thankyou both so much .. great to hear that it can have a good outcome. I’ll book up with the gp.. thanks again

I've had two successful pregnancies with existing high blood pressure (currently sat with 3 week old ds asleep on my chest). Both times I went to see the gp before TTC and was put on labetalol. In both pregnancies they added nifedipine later on as well. Unfortunately I did get pre-eclampsia both times, badly with dd - I had the highest blood pressure the hospital had ever seen (240/150) and she was delivered by EMCS at 35+5. With ds I was monitored much more closely - I got admitted after routine bp monitoring at 33 weeks and he was eventually delivered by EMCS at 33+3, but before the pre-eclampsia really became bad. Hopefully you'll be luckier than I was! Good luck with TTC!

Thanks zebrapig.. thank goodness it all came good 🙏 and congratulations!