Preeclampsia

Definition:
Preeclampsia is a disease mainly occurs in pregnant ladies. This disease characterized by high blood pressure and it also damages the other organs of the body. This Preeclampsia disease usually starts after 20-25 weeks of pregnancy in a woman whose blood pressure is in normal stage. Even for simple complications in blood pressure may be a sign of Preeclampsia. Left untreated, preeclampsia can lead to serious — even fatal — complications for both you and your baby. If you have preeclampsia, the only cure is delivery of your baby. If you're diagnosed with preeclampsia too early in your pregnancy to deliver your baby, you and your doctor face a challenging task. Your baby needs more time to mature, but you need to avoid putting yourself or your baby at risk of serious complications.

Symptoms:
Sometimes Preeclampsia may develop without any symptoms. High blood pressure may develop slowly, but more commonly it has a sudden onset. Monitoring your blood.

Treatment: The main cure for preeclampsia is only delivery. You're at increased risk of seizures, placental abruption, stroke and possibly severe bleeding until your blood pressure decreases. Of course, if it's too early in your pregnancy, delivery may not be the best thing for your baby. If you're diagnosed with preeclampsia, your doctor will let you know how often you'll need to come in for prenatal visits — likely more frequently than what's typically recommended for pregnancy. You'll also need more-frequent blood tests, ultrasounds and nonstress tests than would be expected in an uncomplicated pregnancy. Possible treatment for preeclampsia may include: Medications to lower blood pressure, Corticosteroids, Anticonvulsant medications

Statistics:In Hong Kong the results of the analysis of 74 women admitted to ICU (72.5% for eclampsia), mean age was 30.2years and the majority (90.5%) were in aged 20-39 years. So in overall trend in admission for HDP increased over the years, mortality remained stable. Mean gestational age (GA) on admission was 34.0 weeks (33.5 for preeclampsia vs 35.4 for eclampsia). Most patients presented with complications of which acute kidney injury was most frequent (66.7%). Visual problems were more common in patients with eclampsia compared to preeclampsia (p=0.01). HELLP syndrome and acute pulmonary oedema (APO) were predominant in patients with preeclampsia, while cerebrovascular accidents (CVA) occurred more in patients with eclampsia. Overall mortality was 24.3%. Presence of APO was associated with mortality in multivariable analysis (O.R. = 0.03, p=0, 01).