Pregnancy after eclampsia

Abstract

A prospective study of the pregnancy immediately after convulsive eclampsia was undertaken in 110 patients, divided in three groups: 32 with early eclampsia (convulsions appearing before the thirty-fifth week of amenorrhea), 46 with intermediate eclampsia (convulsions appearing from the thirty-fifth to the thirty-eighth week), and 32 with term eclampsia (convulsions after the thirty-eighth week). Parameters studied in the eclamptic and in the subsequent pregnancy were: perinatal death, average amenorrhea, fetal weight, incidence of retarded fetal growth (RFG), frequency and severity of recurrent toxemia, weight gain during pregnancy, and method of delivery. Perinatal mortality rate in subsequent pregnancies was lower than the average for a general obstetric population in Mexico City but subsequent pregnancies tended to end before term, with 22.0 per cent of growth retarded fetuses, and repeating some degree of toxemia in 35.4 per cent of the cases. These tendencies were considerably more evident in the group of early eclampsia and the differences were highly significant statistically. These findings were commented upon and it was suggested that the most significant characteristic of prognostic consequences for the future pregnancies of eclamptic patients was the timing of convulsions in regard to the length of the pregnancy. This parameter may signal the presence of previous underlying disease and may parallel the importance of the basic defects.