Treatment guidelines for hypertension in pregnancy suggest that more women should be on medication to control their blood pressure. However, new research led by the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences (CHÉOS), jointly affiliated with UBC’s faculty of medicine and Providence Health Care Research Institute, suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when it comes to women’s treatment decisions during pregnancy.
Rebecca Metcalfe, PhD candidate in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC
The findings, published today in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, are important for health-care providers to help women better understand the risks and benefits of hypertension treatment during pregnancy, and to better determine how their patients’ values align with those treatments.
“Pregnancy is a unique period in a woman’s life,” says Rebecca Metcalfe, the study’s lead author and a PhD candidate in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. “Decisions are being made for two people at once and, historically, the emphasis has often not been on what the woman wants.”
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