Hypertension in pregnancy.

Formal assessment of the risk of pre-eclampsia should be made early in pregnancy and antenatal care planned accordingly. Recommendations will emerge by the end of this year in a consensus statement (PRECOG guidelines) prepared by clinicians and the lay organisation Action on Pre-eclampsia (APEC) www.apec.org.uk. Some hospitals complement clinical risk assessment with Doppler screening of uterine artery waveforms in mid-pregnancy. Severe pre-eclampsia often takes an explosive course, evolving over a period of hours. Recognition may, therefore, not be amenable to intermittent blood pressure recording and urine testing, but requires women reporting relevant symptoms and GPs being sensitive to the possible significance of complaints such as vomiting and epigastric pain. Severe hypertension demands urgent antihypertensive treatment in hospital. Magnesium sulphate now has an accepted role in the prevention of eclampsia. Possible prevention of pre-eclampsia by antioxidant therapy is the subject of a clinical trial. Low-dose aspirin has a modest but beneficial effect in high-risk women. Delivery remains the definitive treatment for pre-eclampsia, but there may be initial deterioration after birth, especially in the HELLP syndrome.