Effect of postpartum oral furosemide use on postpartum readmissions and blood pressure trends

Background

Oral furosemide postpartum improves the time to hypertension resolution in randomized control trials. Further investigation is needed to determine the impact of furosemide in routine clinical practice.

Objective

Real world study to assess impact of furosemide on rates of postpartum hypertension and readmissions for patients with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Study Design

A prospective cohort study of postpartum patients with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy at a single institution between October 2021 and April 2022. Patients were enrolled in the remote postpartum blood pressure monitoring program (RPM) as standard of care. Use of oral furosemide for 5 days postpartum was implemented per protocol for all patients with gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. Data was obtained until six weeks postpartum. Exclusion criteria included age less than 18 years old, patients with chronic hypertension alone without superimposed preeclampsia, and patients who did not provide consent for data collection. The primary outcome was hospital readmission within six weeks postpartum. The secondary outcome was blood pressure values across those six weeks. Hypertension was defined as any blood pressure value with SBP ≥ 140 mmHg or DBP ≥ 90 mmHg.

Results

Overall, 545 patients were enrolled in the RPM program during the study period, 306 of them consented to data collection and 258 patients were ultimately included after meeting all inclusion criteria with no exclusions. Of these, 203 patients received furosemide. Overall, 47.7 % of patients had gestational hypertension, 40.3 % of patients had preeclampsia with or without severe features, and 12.0 % of patients had superimposed preeclampsia with or without severe features. In total, 24.2 % of patients were discharged home on an antihypertensive medication in addition to furosemide. The overall rate of readmission was 13.2 %. There was no difference between patients who received oral furosemide versus those who did not (12.8 % vs 14.6 %, p = 0.74). Rates of hypertension at the one-week postpartum visit between those two groups did not differ significantly (32.8 % [oral furosemide] vs 36.2 % [no furosemide], p = 0.66). Diastolic blood pressures at the six-week follow-up visit were lower in the furosemide group (74 [69,81] vs 82 [76,89]; p = 0.02) among patients registered to care who completed the six-week visit.

Conclusion

The addition of furosemide did not result in improved blood pressure control by the first week postpartum or fewer hospital readmissions. However, diastolic blood pressure trended lower at the six-week visit in patients who received furosemide.