Lowering blood pressure?

"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no...
I had my MW appointment today. Overall it went well, fundal is 27 wks,
weight gain fine, baby HR 140s but it seems that my BP is creeping up
130/80 today and she took it three times to make sure since that is
*unusually* high for me. I've dealt with low BP all my life and it has
never gone up this high that I can ever remember. And no, no protein in my
urine, no headaches, no sudden swelling etc.

In the 1997 edition of "The Pregnancy Book" by William Sears it
states:

"New studies show that pregnant women who take 1500 to 2000 milligrams
of daily calcium supplements can reduce their chances of developing
high blood pressure and preeclampsia by 60 to 70 percent."


dragon

"Fer" wrote in message
news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no...
I had my MW appointment today. Overall it went well, fundal is 27 wks,
weight gain fine, baby HR 140s but it seems that my BP is creeping up
130/80 today and she took it three times to make sure since that is
*unusually* high for me. I've dealt with low BP all my life and it has
never gone up this high that I can ever remember. And no, no protein in
my
urine, no headaches, no sudden swelling etc.

So other than getting over a month long cold, finding out that my father
has
a serious disease, and fighting the financial issues of DH, DS and DD's
Bdays before being able to recover from a slow work period and Xmas and
can't see any other reason for it :-\

She 'prescribed' me : upping my protein, eating cukes, garlic, &
watermelon,
bathing in Epsom salts, continuing my yoga and resting once a day (which I
usually do anyways, I seem to *need* a nap everyday)

Is there anything else you guys can think of? Anything I should remove
from
my diet? I would really like to get a handle on this!

On a side note....While we chatted I was surprised to hear that you can
suffer from pre-eclampsia in later pregnancies if the male genetics are
different (and my MW was pleased to teach me something new as she kids
that
our appointments are just for chatting since I read so much on the
subject).


--?

Jenn - 25 weeks today!!
-WAHM
-DS Feb'92
-DD Feb'97
-Jellyfish due June 25/04


A friend of mine usually has higher than average BP and hers had started to
go higher with her pg. She successfully used reflexology to lower her BP
and it also helped with the fluid on her legs.
I had mild PIH last time (beginning at 33 weeks). Like you, my BP was
normally on the lowish end (started at 90/60 last time), but it managed to
make 140/90 when I delivered DD. My BP (post birth of DD) has averaged
about 110 /70 which apparently is fine. I plan on using reflexology (as well
as RRLT) if it starts rising again this time.
HTH
Amanda

--
DD 15th August 2002
1 tiny angel Nov 2003
EDD 19th August 2004

"Fer" writes:

I had my MW appointment today. Overall it went well, fundal is 27 wks,
weight gain fine, baby HR 140s but it seems that my BP is creeping up
130/80 today and she took it three times to make sure since that is
*unusually* high for me.

Chances are that everything will go great and that you'll keep your blood
pressure under control, but, just in case, from now on, you should
probably make sure to take your smallest possible hospital emergency kit
(i.e., toothbrush, cell phone, good book) whenever you have a blood
pressure reading.

Even if you manage to avoid delivering early, chances are someone will
freak out and send you in for observation at some point. You might as
well make sure that you have something to read.

Also: have you talked to your MW about who will deliver you and where and
how if you turn into a high-risk patient? If the MW decides that you have
preeclampsia, chances are that, even if she continues to care for you, a
doctor will end up taking charge.

Say the doctors want to induce labor and insist that you absolutely have
to be on magnesium sulfate.

What will the midwife and doctor do to make sure that you have a walker or
something that you can use to stand up, even while you're on the magnesium
sulfate?

Is there anyway that they can use internal fetal monitors, rather than
external fetal monitors, so that you'll be able to move around a little
while in labor?

(External monitors are probably easier on the baby and more politically
correct, but, if you have external monitors and preeclampsia, every time
you move and the monitors lose track of the baby, your nurses will freak
out. That means that you won't be able to move, at all. I ended up
accepting an epidural just to cope with the pain of not being able to move
at all.)

"New York Jen" writes:

130/80 is really not high at all, just so ya know.

My experience is that, for a pregnant woman who had normal blood pressure
before pregnancy, 130/80 is roughly the point when the doctors start
privately thinking that you're going to end up with preeclampsia.

This is especially true when you're only 27 weeks pregnant. At 27 weeks,
the doctors assume that the mom's blood pressure will still be pretty low.

When the top figure goes to about 160 or the bottom figure goes to about
90, then (in my experience) the doctor may at least talk about sending the
mom to the hospital for observation. (I.e., lying in bed hooked up to
three or four different monitors.)

If you have 160/90 blood pressure and any other signs (protein in urine,
weird blood tests, etc.) that something might be wrong, or you even joke
about having a headaches or seeing stars, chances are that you might end
up having your baby in less than a week. Maybe if you have a very
progressive midwife she can help you argue for postponing delivery awhile
and letting you hang out in bed all day. But my best friend is a midwife,
and her attitude toward preeclampsia is that preeclampsia is a pretty good
reason to put a medical doctor in charge of the delivery.

"Circe" writes:

in the last five weeks was just high regardless of what I did. But the high
BP was also completely benign--the midwife examined the placenta and said it
shown no signs of damage due to the hypertension or anything else, and my
son was completely healthy. (BTW, my BP in the final weeks was regularly in

a) Did the midwife ever send you to the hospital for the observation?

b) Sorry about my bad memory, but was the midwife affiliated with a
hospital? Was there ever any discussion about whether you ought to deliver
in a hospital?

My experience was that my ob/gyn and hospital were very quick to look for
reasons to induce labor once I had a little protein in my urine. But maybe
they were quick on the trigger because they had had a preeclampsia
delivery that went wrong, or something like that.

(Dragon) writes:

In the 1997 edition of "The Pregnancy Book" by William Sears it
states:

"New studies show that pregnant women who take 1500 to 2000 milligrams
of daily calcium supplements can reduce their chances of developing
high blood pressure and preeclampsia by 60 to 70 percent."

- I think the problem with that is that you really have to start taking
the calcium before the placenta implants. Doctors should really start
telling women who might conceive, "Take folic acid every day AND a
calcium supplement."

- Personally, I had one moderately high blood pressure in the 12th week,
then started showing a lot of signs of preeclampsia (moderately high blood
pressure, swollen ankles and feet) around the 27th week.

I started taking regular prenatal vitamins that included calcium around
the 8th week, and, because I had the moderately high blood pressure
reading early on, I started taking calcium supplements, drinking red
raspberry tea, eating extra protein, taking epsom salt baths, etc.
starting around the 28th week.

On the bright side: I managed to keep the doctor from putting me into the
hospital till I was 36 weeks along, and my daughter got a 10 on her Apgar
test. So, maybe what I did was sort of successful.

But the doctors did end up inducing me and eventually performing a rather
hastily scheduled c-section, at 36 weeks, so calcium pills, protein, etc.
do *not* guarantee that you will end up having a magnesium sulfate-free
home birth.

Al Bell wrote:

My experience was that my ob/gyn and hospital were very quick to look
for reasons to induce labor once I had a little protein in my urine.

I had high blood pressure from the beginning of my second pregnancy.
160/110 and down to 145/90 give or take in the end. I used an ob/gyn not a
midwife. I was pressured to induce, and actually was induced but it was
after my due date. I had trace amounts of protein in my urine but only
trace amounts and apparently that isn't all that unusual. I did have more
frequent late term ultrasounds to monitor the health of the placenta and
growth of baby, as well as late term non-stress tests. I also took a daily
baby aspirin (I don't think that is proven to help but it is a traditional
treatment). I was not ordered on bed rest and did not ever have to go into
the hospital for monitoring.

It turned out that I just had chronic hypertension and it was coincidence
that it surfaced at the same time as my second pregnancy. I now take
medication and it is down in the normal range. If I understand things
correctly early high blood pressure increases the risk of pre-eclempisa but
it isn't as worrisome as a spike in blood pressure towards the end of the
pregnancy.

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (4) and Luke (2)

Al Bell wrote:
"Circe" writes:
in the last five weeks was just high regardless of what I did. But
the high BP was also completely benign--the midwife examined the
placenta and said it shown no signs of damage due to the
hypertension or anything else, and my son was completely healthy.
(BTW, my BP in the final weeks was regularly in

a) Did the midwife ever send you to the hospital for the
observation?

Yes. I was in at 37 weeks for a few hours. PIH labs were negative. BP came
down a bit from 160s/90s and they sent me home.

b) Sorry about my bad memory, but was the midwife affiliated with a
hospital?

Yes. My midwifery group delivered in a birth center that was inside the
hospital walls (but "freestanding" in the sense that it was not technically
part of the hospital's L&D ward) and in the hospital's L&D ward.

Was there ever any discussion about whether you ought to
deliver in a hospital?

When it became apparent that my high BP was not a blip, I was risked out of
birthing in the birth center. I gave birth in the hospital's L&D ward,
attended by my midwifery group.

My experience was that my ob/gyn and hospital were very quick to
look for reasons to induce labor once I had a little protein in my
urine.

I had protein in my urine only once during the 5 weeks my BP was high, and
then it was only a trace. A subsequent urine sample showed no protein at
all, and several PIH labs looking for blood-borne signs of PE were negative.
I had no symptoms of PE whatsoever, but that didn't stop the perinatologists
and OBs from pressuring my midwives to pressure me to induce. I was
something of a celebrity during those last few weeks because I kept saying
no to induction despite repeated warnings that I was risking my baby's and
my own life and that an induction would be far easier than high BP with
superimposed PE (as if superimposed PE were some sort of certainty).

I did finally accept induction at 40w2d, primarily because I was tired of
the nurses always being shocked by my BP when they took it, I was tired of
the twice weekly NSTs and AFIs, and I was tired of being warned that I was
doing something terribly risky. It was just too stressful. Fortunately, my
worst fear (which was of a pitocin-induced labor) wasn't realized and all it
took to start my labor was breaking my water--baby came less than four hours
later. I was lucky.

But maybe they were quick on the trigger because they had
had a preeclampsia delivery that went wrong, or something
like that.

It's actually pretty typical for women with high BP to be induced regardless
of whether they're actually showing signs of PE or not. There just isn't
much evidence to suggest that it improves outcomes or that high BP alone is
anything but benign unless the BP itself is so high that it is likely to
cause seizures (although that's another bone of contention--I'd have been
treated as a PE patient and put on mag sulfate if my diastolic BP was ever
consistently in the 100s, but some doctors think it's okay up to diastolics
of 110; if it had happened, I might have politely declined the mag, but
fortunately, it didn't g).

Anyway, I can't opine as to whether you actually had PE and needed to be
induced or not. I am sure I *didn't* have PE, though.
--
Be well, Barbara
(Julian [6], Aurora [4], and Vernon's [2] mom)

All opinions expressed in this post are well-reasoned and insightful.
Needless to say, they are not those of my Internet Service Provider, its
other subscribers or lackeys. Anyone who says otherwise is itchin' for a
fight. -- with apologies to Michael Feldman

New York Jen wrote:

"Fer" wrote in message
news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no...

Is there anything else you guys can think of? Anything I should remove from
my diet? I would really like to get a handle on this!

You should also lower the salt in your diet...avoid any salty foods
(especially when eating out, they use a TON of salt in Chinese, Japanese and
Mexican - for example).

Limiting salt intake in pregnancy hasn't been shown
to reduce pre-eclampsia and can be problematic. Usually the
advice is to salt to taste.

Best wishes,
Ericka

"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no...
I had my MW appointment today. Overall it went well, fundal is 27 wks,
weight gain fine, baby HR 140s but it seems that my BP is creeping up
130/80 today and she took it three times to make sure since that is
*unusually* high for me. I've dealt with low BP all my life and it has
never gone up this high that I can ever remember. And no, no protein in my
urine, no headaches, no sudden swelling etc.

Those symptoms tend to happen later, a couple of weeks after the bp
increase. FWIW, I never had headaches even when my bp was 220/116.

So other than getting over a month long cold, finding out that my father has
a serious disease, and fighting the financial issues of DH, DS and DD's
Bdays before being able to recover from a slow work period and Xmas and
can't see any other reason for it :-\

She 'prescribed' me : upping my protein, eating cukes, garlic, & watermelon,
bathing in Epsom salts, continuing my yoga and resting once a day (which I
usually do anyways, I seem to *need* a nap everyday)

Is there anything else you guys can think of? Anything I should remove from
my diet? I would really like to get a handle on this!

The newer research implies that the symptom trigger in pre-eclampsia
is hypoxia. (There's not much you can do now about how the placenta
implanted, ya know?) So a guess would be that anything that improves
your O2 saturation is good, and anything that worsens it is bad.
(This makes some sense, because pre-eclampsia is associated with
higher elevations, air pollution, snoring, sleep apnea... Of course,
the research is still out.) I'd try to do yoga deep breathing as much
as possible. Do you know if you're snoring, or if you have any sleep
apnea? If your breathing during sleep is compromised, that could be
bad.

On a side note....While we chatted I was surprised to hear that you can
suffer from pre-eclampsia in later pregnancies if the male genetics are
different (and my MW was pleased to teach me something new as she kids that
our appointments are just for chatting since I read so much on the subject).

Yes; the risk of pre-eclampsia in a pregnancy with a new partner is
approximately the same as the risk in a first pregnancy. You are also
at higher risk if your partner's mother had it.

Good luck; I took extra calcium and antioxidants, walked, swum, ate a
lot of protein, and cut back on my work schedule -- and still had an
emergent c-section at 34 weeks with a case of severe pre-eclampsia
instead of having a homebirth. So take it seriously, and remember
that although the symptoms can be mostly uninteresting to you, they
are dangerous at extremes. I'll be sending good wishes your way.

--
C, mama to 15 month old nursling