Women with a history of preeclampsia had higher long-term risks of cardiovascular disease, thromboembolism, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular-related mortality in a large nationwide registry analysis published in Pregnancy Hypertension.

The analysis linked data from the Medical Birth Register, Hospital Discharge Register, Care Register for Health Care, and Causes of Death Register between 1987 and 2022. The study included 1,014,749 women with 2,050,970 deliveries, including 47,961 pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia. Median follow-up was 18.1 years among women with preeclampsia and 21.1 years among controls.

Cardiovascular outcomes occurred more frequently among women with preeclampsia than among controls, including hypertension (15.4% vs 7.0%), ischemic heart disease (2.9% vs 1.7%), and stroke (2.3% vs 1.3%). Women with preeclampsia had higher risks across all evaluated outcomes, including hypertension (hazard ratio [HR] 2.90), ischemic heart disease (HR 2.05), stroke (HR 2.25), pulmonary heart disease (HR 1.60), heart failure (HF) (HR 2.52), type 2 diabetes (HR 2.73), and thromboembolism (HR 1.87).

Women with a history of preeclampsia had a two- to three-fold higher risk of cardiovascular-related mortality. The findings showed that preeclampsia was associated with increased long-term cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, supporting the importance of continued cardiovascular risk assessment beyond the postpartum period.