DENVER — Researchers at Intermountain Health have found that women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy face a significantly higher risk of serious cardiovascular problems in the years after giving birth — including heart failure, stroke and heart attack.
The study analyzed more than 218,000 live births across 22 Intermountain hospitals between 2017 and 2024. About one in five patients had a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension or preeclampsia. Researchers then tracked cardiovascular outcomes for an average of five years.
Dr. Kirstin Hesterberg, an Intermountain Health physician in the Denver region and a contributing author on the study, said the findings reinforce what clinicians have been seeing…