Pregnancy and the Risk of Stroke

This is a late post from earlier this week, however; I found an article from the New England Journal of Medicine that was a little different from the topic we talked about the last two weeks. (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/335/11/768)

The risk of stroke for pregnant women are greater in the first six weeks after delivery and not during the actual pregnancy according to this study.

 Authors Kittner and Stern refuted the belief that pregnancy increased the likelihood of cerebral infarctions and intracerebral hemmorages. In fact from an earlier record from the Mayo Clinic from 1955 to 1979 proof was further given when only one woman suffered an ischemic stroke and no record of intracerebral hemmorage or subarachnoid hemorrhages and found that about 4 in 100,00 women suffered a cerebral infarction during deliveries.

The reason for the increase of strokes postpartum vs. during pregnancy can be attributed to the change in hormones during delivery with the addition of lower blood volume.