Summary: Migraine analysis in ladies previous to being pregnant was linked with an elevated threat of problems throughout being pregnant together with preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, and an elevated threat of pre-term delivery.
Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Women are disproportionately affected by migraine, particularly throughout their reproductive years. However, the connection between migraine and adversarial being pregnant outcomes has not been effectively understood.
A brand new examine by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, analyzed knowledge from 1000’s of ladies from the Nurses’ Health Study II to evaluate the connection between migraine and being pregnant problems.
In a paper printed in Neurology, the crew stories that migraine recognized previous to being pregnant was linked to adversarial outcomes throughout being pregnant, together with preterm supply, gestational hypertension, and preeclampsia, suggesting that migraine could also be a scientific marker of elevated obstetric threat.
“Preterm delivery and hypertensive disorders are some of the primary drivers of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality,” stated first writer Alexandra Purdue-Smithe, Ph.D., affiliate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and teacher in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“Our findings suggest that a history of migraine warrants consideration as an important risk factor for these complications and could be useful in flagging women who may benefit from enhanced monitoring during pregnancy.”
Women are two to 3 occasions extra seemingly than males to expertise migraine of their lifetime, and migraine is most prevalent amongst ladies between the ages of 18 and 44. For some, the migraine complications could be accompanied by aura (5.5% of the inhabitants), that are normally visible disturbances that seem previous to headache onset.
Adverse being pregnant outcomes and migraine, particularly migraine with aura, are every persistently related to increased threat of coronary coronary heart illness and ischemic stroke in ladies in response to prior research.
The underlying biology answerable for these dangers may additionally enhance the chance of being pregnant problems. But thus far, just a few small or retrospective research have examined migraine as a threat issue for being pregnant problems. No potential research have examined dangers by aura phenotype (migraine with versus with out aura).
Purdue-Smithe and colleagues analyzed knowledge from the big, potential Nurses’ Health Study II, which included 30,555 pregnancies from 19,694 U.S. nurses. Investigators checked out pre-pregnancy self-reported physician-diagnosed migraine and migraine phenotype (migraine with and with out aura) and incidence of self-reported being pregnant outcomes.
Due to the big dimension of the examine inhabitants and availability of information on different well being and behavioral elements, researchers may management for potential confounding elements of their analyses, resembling physique mass index, persistent hypertension, and smoking.
Researchers discovered that pre-pregnancy migraine was related to a 17 % increased threat of preterm supply, 28 % increased fee of gestational hypertension, and 40 % increased fee of preeclampsia in comparison with no migraine.
Migraine with aura was related to a considerably increased threat of preeclampsia than migraine with out aura. Migraine was not related to low delivery weight or gestational diabetes mellitus.
Participants with migraine who reported common aspirin use (greater than twice weekly) previous to being pregnant had a forty five % decrease threat for preterm supply.
The US Preventive Services Task Force at the moment recommends low-dose aspirin throughout being pregnant for people at excessive threat of preeclampsia and people who have a couple of average threat issue for preeclampsia.
Clinical trials have proven that low-dose aspirin throughout being pregnant can be efficient at lowering charges of preterm delivery.

However, Purdue-Smithe notes that migraine is at the moment not included amongst indications for aspirin use in being pregnant.
“Our findings of reduced risk of preterm delivery among women with migraine who reported regular aspirin use prior to pregnancy suggests that aspirin may also be beneficial for women with migraine. Given the observational nature of our study, and the lack of detailed information on aspirin dosage available in the cohort, clinical trials will be needed to definitively answer this question.”
Some different limitations of the examine embody that, members solely reported if that they had a physician-diagnosis of migraine, seemingly excluding those that didn’t have persistent or extreme migraine.
Further, aura was assessed after the migraine analysis and after lots of the pregnancies within the cohort, probably leading to some extent of reverse causation in analyses analyzing migraine phenotype.
Additionally, the cohort examine consists of predominantly non-Hispanic white people with comparatively excessive socioeconomic standing and well being literacy, which may restrict generalizability.
About this migraine and being pregnant analysis information
Author: Press Office
Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Contact: Press Office – Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Image: The picture is within the public area
Original Research: Closed entry.
“Prepregnancy Migraine, Migraine Phenotype, and Risk of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes” by Alexandra C Purdue-Smithe et al. Neurology
Abstract
Prepregnancy Migraine, Migraine Phenotype, and Risk of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes
Background and Objective: Migraine is a extremely prevalent neurovascular dysfunction amongst reproductive-aged ladies. Whether migraine historical past and migraine phenotype would possibly function clinically helpful markers of obstetric threat is just not clear. The major goal of this examine was to look at associations of pre-pregnancy migraine and migraine phenotype with dangers of adversarial being pregnant outcomes.
Methods: We estimated associations of self-reported physician-diagnosed migraine and migraine phenotype with adversarial being pregnant outcomes within the potential Nurses’ Health Study II (1989-2009). Log-binomial and log-Poisson fashions with generalized estimating equations have been used to estimate relative dangers (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, preterm supply, and low birthweight.
Results: The evaluation included 30,555 incident pregnancies after cohort enrollment amongst 19,694 members and not using a historical past of heart problems, diabetes, or most cancers. After adjusting for age, adiposity, and different well being and behavioral elements, pre-pregnancy migraine (11%) was related to increased dangers of preterm supply (RR=1.17; 95% CI=1.05, 1.30), gestational hypertension (RR=1.28; 95% CI=1.11, 1.48), and preeclampsia (RR=1.40; 95% CI=1.19, 1.65) in comparison with no migraine. Migraine was not related to low birthweight (RR=0.99; 95% CI=0.85, 1.16) or GDM (RR=1.05; 95% CI=0.91, 1.22). Risk of preeclampsia was considerably increased amongst members with migraine with aura (RR versus no migraine=1.51; 95% CI=1.22, 1.88) than migraine with out aura (RR versus no migraine=1.30; 95% CI=1.04, 1.61; P-heterogeneity=0.32), whereas different outcomes have been comparable by migraine phenotype. Participants with migraine who reported common pre-pregnancy aspirin use had decrease dangers of preterm supply (<2x/wk RR=1.24; 95% CI=1.11, 1.38; ≥2x/wk RR=0.55; 95% CI=0.35, 0.86; P-interaction <0.01) and preeclampsia (<2x/wk RR=1.48; 95% CI=1.25, 1.75; ≥2x/wk RR=1.10; 95% CI=0.62, 1.96; P-interaction=0.39); nonetheless, energy for these stratified analyses was restricted.
Conclusions: Migraine historical past, and to a lesser extent migraine phenotype, seem like vital concerns in obstetric threat evaluation and administration. Future analysis ought to decide whether or not aspirin prophylaxis could also be helpful for stopping adversarial being pregnant outcomes amongst pregnant people with a historical past of migraine.



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