karacg
Babygirl is 4!
Member since 5/05 17076 total posts
Name:
Kara®
|
Interesting article in Newsday today re: pre-eclampsia
Aspirin therapy aids in pregnancy disorder
BY DELTHIA RICKS
[email protected]
May 16, 2007, 7:31 PM EDT
Aspirin therapy helps prevent pre-eclampsia, an age-old problem of pregnancy for which there is no cure, researchers report in a major new analysis reported Wednesday.
For as long as there has been pregnancy, pre-eclampsia has been one of its greatest mysteries. The condition usually doesn't occur until the last trimester, and last week scientists announced a saliva-based test that might spot it earlier.
To this day, it remains a threat to both mother and baby when left untreated.
Dr. Burton Rochelson, chief of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, said the new research conducted by Australian physicians confirms what many doctors had already suspected: prescribing a baby aspirin a day helps to prevent the potentially devastating condition.
"There is a theory that pre-eclampsia is due to an abnormal inflammatory process," Rochelson said in an interview Wednesday. Aspirin and other blood-thinning medications can prevent the cascade of biological events that lead to inflammation.
For at least two decades, Rochelson added, many physicians have been prescribing baby aspirin to pregnant women who develop the signs of the disease -- soaring blood pressure, swollen ankles and high levels of protein in their urine. The disorder complicates 2 percent to 8 percent of all pregnancies worldwide and is most prevalent in first pregnancies. The disease is a leading cause of death for pregnant women.
Dr. Lisa Askie of the University of Sydney pooled and then re-analyzed the data from 31 recent studies involving 32,217 women and their 32,819 babies. She found that low-dose aspirin or other blood thinning agents "provided moderate but consistent" reductions in the risk of pre-eclampsia. Askie reported her findings in The Lancet.
Drs. James Roberts and Janet Catov of the University of Pittsburgh, who critiqued Askie's research, noted that aspirin carries potentially serious gastrointestinal side effects and should be prescribed with care.
An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the 500,000 maternal deaths occurring globally are directly related to pre-eclampsia. The condition can advance to eclampsia, which is marked by seizures. In such severe cases, the placental blood supply can be restricted, depriving the fetus of oxygen and nutrients. Low-birth-weight infants and stillbirths have been associated with the disorder.
"It defintely runs in families," Rochelson said of pre-eclampsia's genetics.
Nailing down the cause, he said, is one of medicine's Holy Grails. Rochelson noted that on the facade of Chicago's Lying-in Hospital, one of the country's oldest maternity institutions, there are several shields marking key developments and their discoverers. One shield remains empty. "It's for the person who discovers the cause of pre-eclampsia," Rochelson said.
|
