Hypertensive pregnancy.

[TinyTimLivesinVictorianSqualor]

What is it? Has anyone got any experience of it?

I've just been reading up on it and am now even more confused, I have low blood pressure yet I'm being told I'm hypertensive (low is hpyo not hyper) so is it the blood pressure to the baby thats high?

Usually hypertensive refers to your own BP, nothing to do with the baby (although raised BP can have a knock-on effect to placental function).

Was this at a mw's appt? What was your last BP?

My blood pressure wasn't checked. I had a scan of the uterine artery and they said it wasn't right, thats where the hypertensive thing came in, it is on my notes and my referral to the specialist consultant.
My onw blood pressure is usually mroe on thelow side than high though.

bump

What stage are you at Tiny Tim? My BP started escalating at about 36 weeks, resulting in repeated checks to rule out pre-eclampsia and monitoring of the baby. I was going in for about 3-4 hours every other day for the last 3 weeks. However, my "high" BP was almost certainly just "white coat hypertension", i.e. just caused by the repeated BP checks etc. I was having acupuncture around that time, and it was always normal whenever the acupuncurist checked it. So if you suspect the high readings could be caused by stress / the hospital environment, it would be worth getting your BP checked somewhere else if poss. (In the end I managed to avoid induction at 38 weeks and had DD at 41+5. My BP during the birth and afterwards were totally normal, which I think would not have been the case if it was "genuine" hypertension in pregnancy.) There is some info on hypertension in pregnancy on the pre-eclampsia support website: [www.preeclampsia.org], but I didn't find it that helpful as it seems to suggest that it always means that you really have pre-eclampsia (about 100 urine and blood tests ruled that out in my case). Hope this helps...

I'm 24 weeks, my blood pressure has always been around 120/70 so not exactly high! I'm hoping they just mean 'possible' hypertensive pregnancy

TinyTim, I had high bp before being pg, so slightly diff situation from you but I was checked throughout for any problems this may cause. I was on methyldopa tablets throughout (bp medication that is safe to take in pg). I also had quite a few growth scans as high bp can affect the growth of the foetus. I remember they checked the uterine artery on the scans each time, I think the bp can affect the flow to the foetus and that may affect growth. I'm suprised it's being classed as hypertensive pg if your bp is low.

As you prob know, having hypertension in pg is a risk factor for pre-eclampsia. Doesn't mean you will definitely develop it - I had 3 risk factors - age (over 35), first pg and hypertension - and I didn't get it - I think my doctor thought it was a certainty that I would! I had a lovely healthy dd 6 weeks ago, healthy weight (7lb 14) and all is well.

If you have hypertensive pg you will prob just have extra scans to check the baby's growth. I was also induced a couple of days before my due date as doctors thought it inadvisable to go overdue with high bp. Don't know if that would be advised in your case.