The most common serious pregnancy complication arises due to an ancient conflict between mothers and fathers.
Itcould have ended badly in so many ways. My friend, let’s call her Amy, in vibrant mid-twenties health, could not have been more ready for her first pregnancy. Apart from some nausea in the first trimester, she breezed through the first eight months. But as her due date approached, Amy’s hands, feet, and face puffed up with retained fluid. A Friday afternoon visit to her doctor showed high blood pressure and some protein in her urine.
By early the next week, Amy’s face had swollen so much that her eyes were almost shut, her blood pressure had rocketed to 160 over 110, and her urinary protein levels spelled a warning. Doctors watch for these symptoms because they often portend the most common dangerous pregnancy complication: pre-eclampsia.
The only known cure for pre-eclampsia is to deliver the baby. With only two weeks until Amy’s due date, the obstetrician didn’t hesitate to induce labor. After many long hours, a scare when the baby’s heart rate began to drop, and a dramatic forceps delivery, Amy lapsed into convulsions. Pre-eclampsia progressed to eclampsia, a mortally dangerous condition.
With modern medical care, fewer than one in 200 women with pre-eclampsia progress to eclampsia. Among those who do, many sustain massive damage to their kidneys, liver, or brain. Quite a few die.
Between three and ten percent of pregnancies are classed as pre-eclamptic, although their symptoms seldom match Amy’s for drama. Yet despite its high rate of incidence and the considerable suffering it causes, science knows remarkably little about why pre-eclampsia occurs.
The causes of pre-eclampsia remain so murky that it is often called “a disease of theories”
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