Young mums-to-be at ‘greater risk of suffering a STROKE than older pregnant women’

YOUNG mums-to-be could be at greater risk of suffering a stroke, experts have warned.

Women who get pregnant before the age of 35, face a greater risk than their non-pregnant peers – and the risk lasts for six weeks after child birth, new research suggests.

But for older women, who are at greater risk of stroke than younger women, their risk was similar to women of their own age who were not pregnant.

The study found pregnancy-associated stroke, accounted for 15 per cent of strokes in women aged 12 to 24 and 20 per cent of strokes in women aged 25 to 34.

Yet in women, aged 35 to 44, pregnancy-associated stroke accounted for five per cent of strokes and in women aged 45 to 55, it was 0.05 per cent.

And women with pregnancy-associated stroke were less likely than women with non-pregnancy-associated stroke, to have vascular risk factors, diabetes or smoke.

Death was also lower among women with pregnancy-assisted stroke, compared with non-pregnancy-associated stroke.

The NHS said during pregnancy, hormone levels rise causing changes in the blood vessels and the make-up of the blood.

Blood pressure also rises and these changes can increase the risk of stroke..

Yet, the risk of stroke in young women was small and strokes caused by pregnancy and childbirth are rare with stroke during pregnancy affecting an estimated eight out of every 100,000 women.

Dr Eliza Miller of Columbia University said the different underlying stoke mechanisms may factor into why younger women had higher stroke risk during pregnancy.

The results were based on hospital records of stroke admissions in the state of New York from 2003 until 2012.

There were 19,146 women hospitalised with stroke and 797 or 4.2 per cent were pregnant or postpartum.

Dr Miller said: “In our sample of all women aged 12 to 55 years hospitalised with stroke in New York State from 2003 to 2012, younger pregnant and postpartum women, but not older women, were at increased risk of stroke compared with non pregnant contemporaries.

Although older women have an increased risk of many pregnancy complications, a higher risk of stroke may not be one of them

Dr Eliza Miller, Columbia University, New York

“These results have potential implications for research aimed at better characterising and preventing pregnancy-associated stroke and clinically in terms of counselling patients.

“Although older women have an increased risk of many pregnancy complications, a higher risk of stroke may not be one of them.

“Our results should be interpreted with caution and regarded primarily as hypothesis generating, more research is needed to investigate why younger women may have an increased risk of pregnancy-associated stroke.”

The study was published by JAMA Neurology.

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