PRECOG 2 - Who is more likely to get PE?

The reasons you are more likely to get pre-eclampsia that PRECOG asks about early in pregnancy. The most important thing to remember is that none of them are your fault! None of them mean you are definitely going to get it, or get it again.

They are:

• first pregnancy
  a long time since your last baby (10 years or more)
  if you are an older mum (40 or more)
  if you weigh a lot for your height (called the Body Mass Index: it is worked out by taking your weight in kilograms and dividing it twice by your height in metres. For example, if you weigh 70 kilograms and you are 1.6metres tall, your body mass index is 70 divided by 1.6 is 43, divided again by 1.6 is 27. If your Body Mass Index is 35 or more, you are more likely to get pre-eclampsia
  If you have had pre-eclampsia before
  If your mother or sister has had pre-eclampsia
  If you are expecting twins or more babies
  If you already have high blood pressure (hypertension; sometimes called chronic hypertension or pre-existing hypertension)People may not know that they have high blood pressure, if they havent been to the doctors recently or ever had their blood pressure checked. But if the midwife sees that your blood pressure is high early in pregnancy, chances are that you had hypertension before, but didnt know it.
  If you have kidney disease
  If you have diabetes
  If you have antiphospholipid antibodies.

Hardly anyone has any reason to be checked before they are pregnant to see if they have this - it is something in the blood which can make it sticky. Doctor will often test for it if you have had pre-eclampsia before, or if you have had a several miscarriages. But if you do have them (about 2 in 100 people do) you are 10x more likely to have pre-eclampsia than people who dont have it.

There are other factors which might make you more likely to get pre-eclampsia which we didnt include in the guideline. This was either because there are not enough medical studies to know definitely, or because they are things that are hard to measure, or discuss.

In part 3, I will talk about people who, if following the PRECOG guideline, will be invited to see a specialist, early in their pregnancy. They are people who have had pre-eclampsia before, people with high blood pressure, kidney disease or diabetes, people who are expecting twins, and people with antiphospholipid antibodies.