Women who suffer pregnancy loss have higher risk of cardiovascular diseases in older age, a new research shows.
Researchers at the Center for Primary Care and Prevention at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island observed in their study that repeated miscarriages increase the danger of coronary heart diseases. For the study, the researchers examined the medical information about maternity collected from 77,701 women.
The team noted that 30.3 percent had a history of pregnancy loss, 2.2 percent experienced stillbirth and 2.2 percent women suffered both the problems.
"We found that the adjusted odds for coronary heart disease in women who had one or more stillbirths was 1.27 (95 percent confidence interval (CI), which is a measure of reliability, 1.07-1.51) compared with women who had no stillbirths. For women with a history of one miscarriage, the odds ratio was 1.19 (95 percent CI, 1.08-1.32). For women with a history of two or more miscarriages, the odds ratio was 1.18 (95 percent CI, 1.04-1.34) compared with no miscarriage," Donna Parker, ScD, director for community health and research with the CPCP, said in a press release.
The study did not show any major link between ischemic stroke and miscarriage. Researchers state that the connection between pregnancy loss and coronary heart diseases was devoid of hypertension, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and white blood cell count.
"These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence that the metabolic, hormonal and hemostatic pathway alterations that are associated with a pregnancy loss may contribute to the development of coronary heart disease in adulthood," Dr Parker said.
Researchers stressed the need to closely monitor women with a history of miscarriages or single stillbirth for certain risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, obesity, smoking and obesity.
The study was published in the Annals of Family Medicine.
