Women with blood pressure levels in a range considered slightly elevated but clinically normal during pregnancy, with no mid-pregnancy drop in blood pressure, face an increased risk of developing hypertension in the five years after giving birth. These women—about 12% of the population studied—would not be flagged as high-risk by current medical guidelines, but the new findings could help identify them as candidates for early intervention. The findings were just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Advances.

Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, researchers collected data on blood pressure and other health factors from 854 women during pregnancy and up to five years postpartum. That longitudinal approach allowed them to map the trajectory of women’s blood pressure throughout pregnancy and to spot a link between specific blood pressure patterns and hypertension several years later.

For most women in the study (80.2%), systolic blood pressure remained low throughout pregnancy. In 7.4% of women, blood pressure started out high, dropped during the second trimester, then increased again. A third group of women (12.4%) had slightly elevated systolic blood pressure that remained at a healthy level throughout pregnancy, but did not drop during the second trimester. Compared to the first group, these women faced a 4.91 times higher risk of hypertension in the five years after giving birth.

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