Pregnancy Doubles The Risk Of Stroke In Younger Women

Many people say that older women are usually at a higher risk for complications during pregnancy compared to younger women. However, in a recent study, experts claim that younger women are the most risk of suffering from a stroke during pregnancy.

According to Medical News Today, researchers discovered that older women who are pregnant had a similar stroke risk as those who are non-pregnant older women. However, they also said that younger pregnant women were found to be two times more at risk of stroke than non-pregnant women of the same age.

The research, led by Dr. Eliza C. Miller, of the Department of Neurology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) in New York, and a her team, which was also published their findings in JAMA Neurology, revealed that there are about 795,000 people in the United States who are affected by stroke, and it is usually the cause of more than 130,000 deaths.

"These results have potential implications for research aimed at better characterizing and preventing PAS [pregnancy-associated stroke] and clinically in terms of counseling patients," the authors wrote in JAMA. "Although older women have an increased risk of many pregnancy complications, a higher risk of stroke may not be one of them," they added.

Pregnancy-related strokes affected 14 of every 100,000 pregnant women aged 12 to 24 years old, compared to 6.4 per 100,000 non-pregnant girls in that aged group, reported Daily Mail. Pregnancy-related strokes affect at least 14 of every 100,000 pregnant women aged 12 to 24 years old, compared to 6.4 per 100,000 non-pregnant girls in that aged group. Women between the ages 25 and 34 were at a slightly lower risk but still double in number, which is 21 strokes per 100,000 pregnant women versus 13 strokes per 100,000 non-pregnant women their age. In women aged 35 to 44, PAS incidence was 33 per 100,000 pregnant women and NPAS incidence was 31 per 100,000 non-pregnant women.

In women 45 to 55, PAS incidence was 46.9 for every 100,000 pregnant women compared with NPAS incidence of 73.7 per 100,000 non-pregnant women. Even though older pregnant women had higher rates of stroke in pregnancy than younger pregnant women, their risk of stroke was similar to women of their own age who were not pregnant. However, the authors reported that in women under age 35, pregnancy increased the risk of stroke, two times more than the usual number in the youngest group.

Meanwhile, the Sun reported Dr. Miller saying, "Our results should be interpreted with caution and regarded primarily as hypothesis generating, more research is needed to investigate why younger women may have an increased risk of pregnancy-associated stroke."