Skip to main content

Consistently Higher Systolic BP During Pregnancy Tied to Long-Term Hypertension Risk

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on March 26, 2025.

via HealthDay

WEDNESDAY, March 26, 2025 -- Pregnant individuals with consistently elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP), yet within the subclinical range, face a higher five-year risk for hypertension, according to a study published in the April 1 issue of JACC: Advances.

Zhongzheng Niu, Ph.D., from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues identified distinct gestational SBP trajectories and examined their association with postpartum hypertension risk. The analysis included 854 pregnant individuals followed from early pregnancy to five years postpartum.

The researchers identified three distinct gestational SBP trajectory groups. The majority of participants (80.2 percent) had a "consistently low" trajectory over pregnancy. The group with a "consistently elevated" trajectory (12.4 percent) was characterized by modestly elevated SBP within a clinically normal range but lacked a midpregnancy dip. The group characterized by a "high-drop-high" trajectory (7.4 percent) consisted of most cases of gestational hypertension or preeclampsia. At five years postpartum, the risk for hypertension was 4.91-fold higher in the "consistently elevated" group and 5.44-fold higher in the "high-drop-high" group versus the "consistently low" group, after adjusting for covariates.

"Pregnant individuals with consistently elevated SBP yet within the subclinical range face longer-term risk of hypertension but may not be captured by standard prenatal clinical guidelines," the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

Remotely Delivered Behavioral Intervention Reduces Systolic BP Variation

THURSDAY, Aug. 21, 2025 -- A remotely delivered behavioral intervention can reduce variability in systolic blood pressure, expressed as the coefficient of variation (BPCoV)...

Seniors With Certain Cardiovascular Diseases Saw Life's Essential 8 Scores Decline 2013 to 2018

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20, 2025 -- From 2013 to 2018, older adults with heart failure, stroke, and hypertension experienced significant declines in Life's Essential 8 (LE8) scores...

Intensive Systolic BP Target Cost-Effective for Patients at High Cardiovascular Risk

TUESDAY, Aug. 19, 2025 -- For patients 50 years or older at high cardiovascular risk without diabetes or prior stroke, an intensive systolic blood pressure (SBP) target (<120...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.