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#11
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Lowering blood pressure?
"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no...
I had my MW appointment today. Overall it went well, fundal is 27 wks, weight gain fine, baby HR 140s but it seems that my BP is creeping up 130/80 today and she took it three times to make sure since that is *unusually* high for me. I've dealt with low BP all my life and it has never gone up this high that I can ever remember. And no, no protein in my urine, no headaches, no sudden swelling etc. In the 1997 edition of "The Pregnancy Book" by William Sears it states: "New studies show that pregnant women who take 1500 to 2000 milligrams of daily calcium supplements can reduce their chances of developing high blood pressure and preeclampsia by 60 to 70 percent." dragon |
#12
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Lowering blood pressure?
"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$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. 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 |
#13
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Lowering blood pressure?
"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.) |
#14
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Lowering blood pressure?
"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. |
#15
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Lowering blood pressure?
"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. |
#16
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Lowering blood pressure?
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#17
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Lowering blood pressure?
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) |
#18
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Lowering blood pressure?
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 |
#19
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Lowering blood pressure?
New York Jen wrote:
"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$X%5.759867@pd7tw2no... Is there anything else you guys can think of? Anything I should remove from my diet? I would really like to get a handle on this! You should also lower the salt in your diet...avoid any salty foods (especially when eating out, they use a TON of salt in Chinese, Japanese and Mexican - for example). Limiting salt intake in pregnancy hasn't been shown to reduce pre-eclampsia and can be problematic. Usually the advice is to salt to taste. Best wishes, Ericka |
#20
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Lowering blood pressure?
"Fer" wrote in message news:1ue4c.782904$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. 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 |
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