The hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (29.3)

Hypertensive disorders are the most common medical complication of pregnancy. As such, a large part of antenatal care is dedicated to the detection of pre-eclampsia, the most dangerous of the hypertensive disorders. The highlights of this chapter include progress in the use of out-of-office blood pressure measurement as an adjunct to office blood pressure measurement, pre-eclampsia defined as proteinuria or relevant end-organ dysfunction, antihypertensive therapy for severe and non-severe hypertension and post-partum follow-up to mitigate the increased cardiovascular risk associated with any of the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.