Study: Strokes rise among pregnant women

Strokes have spiked in the United States among pregnant women and new mothers, probably because more of them are obese and suffer from high blood pressure and heart disease, researchers report.

Hospitalizations for pregnancy-related strokes and "mini strokes" jumped from about 4,100 in 1994-95 to 6,300 in 2006-07, up 54 percent, they said, extrapolating from figures in a large federal database.

"That is a very, very alarm-raising statistic that we need to take extremely seriously," said Dr. Olajide Williams, a neurologist at Columbia University and Harlem Hospital and an American Stroke Association spokesman.

The number of strokes is small, considering that around 4 million babies are born each year in the nation. But pregnancy raises risk of a stroke because of all the hormone and blood changes that occur. If a woman starts out unhealthy, with a problem like diabetes or high blood pressure, she doubles her risk of a stroke during or right after pregnancy, said Dr. Elena Kuklina of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She led the study, published yesterday in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

Researchers used records from a national sample covering up to 8 million hospitalizations a year. They looked at the number of women having strokes or transient ischemic attacks -- TIAs, or "mini strokes" -- while pregnant or in the three months after childbirth. Rates were highest in the South and lowest in the Northeast.

Researchers concluded that high blood pressure and heart disease accounted for nearly all the rise in stroke-related hospitalizations. They also noted that women are having children at later ages, and the risk of a stroke rises with age.