Preeclampsia: Effect on the Fetus and Newborn
- 1 April 2011
- journal article
- Published by American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in NeoReviews
- Vol. 12 (4), e198-e206
- https://doi.org/10.1542/neo.12-4-e198
Abstract
Preeclampsia (PE) is the most common medical complication in pregnancy and a major cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. This disease is a great challenge for obstetricians because there are no effective interventions to treat or prevent it, and antenatal care involves a difficult balance between the risks for women to continue pregnancy and the risks for the baby’s early birth. Fetal complications in PE are directly related to gestational age and the severity of maternal disease and include increased rates of preterm delivery, intrauterine growth restriction, placental abruption, and perinatal death. The major complications for the newborn are related to prematurity, although the data on the morbidity and outcome for preterm infants of women who have PE are conflicting, and few studies address this issue. The pathogenesis of PE involves abnormal placentation associated with immune and vascular events that result in endothelial dysfunction and clinical manifestations of PE. This disease has been associated with imbalance in angiogenic factors and oxidative stress. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies have been carried out on fetuses and newborns that suggest that infants born from women who have PE are exposed to increased oxidative stress. Because oxidative stress and free radicals may play roles in several neonatal diseases, a direct effect of maternal disease on neonatal outcome is expected, and further research on such neonates, in the short- and long-term, is urgently needed.Keywords
This publication has 45 references indexed in Scilit:
- Sepsis and Neutropenia in Very Low Birth Weight Infants Delivered of Mothers with PreeclampsiaThe Journal of Pediatrics, 2010
- An immunological insight into the origins of pre-eclampsiaHuman Reproduction Update, 2010
- Preeclampsia and pregnancies with small-for-gestational age neonates have different profiles of complement split productsThe Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 2009
- Induction of labour versus expectant monitoring for gestational hypertension or mild pre-eclampsia after 36 weeks' gestation (HYPITAT): a multicentre, open-label randomised controlled trialThe Lancet, 2009
- Rethinking IUGR in preeclampsia: dependent or independent of maternal hypertension?Journal of Perinatology, 2009
- The Global Impact of Pre-eclampsia and EclampsiaSeminars in Perinatology, 2009
- Hypertensive Diseases of Pregnancy and the Development of Behavioral Problems in Childhood and Adolescence: The Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort StudyThe Journal of Pediatrics, 2009
- A longitudinal study of angiogenic (placental growth factor) and anti-angiogenic (soluble endoglin and soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-1) factors in normal pregnancy and patients destined to develop preeclampsia and deliver a small for gestational age neonateThe Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 2008
- Pre-eclampsiaThe Lancet, 2005
- Maternal Hypertensive Disorders Are an Independent Risk Factor for the Development of Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Very Low Birth Weight InfantsFetal Diagnosis and Therapy, 2003