Maternal Cardiovascular Health in Hypertensive Disorders
Summary
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy encompass a spectrum of blood pressure abnormalities that arise after 20 weeks’ gestation, most notably gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia. These conditions affect up to 10% of pregnancies worldwide and signal an elevated risk of persistent cardiovascular sequelae. Women who develop high blood pressure in pregnancy exhibit early alterations in vascular structure and function, including endothelial dysfunction, increased arterial stiffness and subclinical myocardial remodelling. Such changes often persist or worsen postpartum, predisposing to chronic hypertension, dyslipidaemia, insulin resistance and accelerated atherosclerosis. The severity and onset of the hypertensive disorder—whether accompanied by factors such as preterm birth or fetal growth restriction—further stratify long-term risk. Recognition of these pregnancy complications as an early indicator of future cardiovascular disease has prompted calls for systematic follow-up strategies, personalised risk assessment and integration of obstetric history into cardiovascular prevention guidelines.
Research from Nature Portfolio
No recent Nature Portfolio content available.
Maternal Cardiovascular Health in Hypertensive Disorders publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in maternal cardiovascular health in hypertensive disorders across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP): an umbrella term for high blood pressure conditions arising during pregnancy, including gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia.
Preeclampsia: a pregnancy-specific multisystem disorder marked by hypertension and organ dysfunction, often including proteinuria, usually arising after 20 weeks’ gestation.
Gestational hypertension: new-onset high blood pressure during pregnancy without proteinuria or other systemic features of pre-eclampsia.
Small-for-gestational-age (SGA): an infant whose birthweight falls below the 10th percentile for its gestational age, often indicating growth restriction.
Postpartum period: the interval following childbirth, often focused on the first two years for cardiovascular risk monitoring.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD): a broad class of disorders of the heart and blood vessels, including coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke.
References
- Cardiovascular mortality in women in their forties after hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in the Netherlands: a national cohort study. The Lancet Healthy Longevity (2023).
- Association between pregnancy-related complications and development of type 2 diabetes and hypertension in women: an umbrella review. BMC Medicine (2024).
- Risk of future cardiovascular diseases in different years postpartum after hypertensive disorders of pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine (2022).
- Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Future Cardiovascular Health. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine (2020).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.