Pre-eclampsia is the most common of the serious complications of pregnancy. It is caused by a defect in the placenta, which joins mother and baby and supplies the baby with nutrients and oxygen from the mother's blood. Pre-eclampsia is symptom-less in the early stages and is detectable only by regular antenatal checks on the mother's blood pressure and urine.

In its widest forms, pre-eclampsia affects about one in 10 pregnancies overall and one in 50 pregnancies severely. Pre-eclampsia can be very serious and is still responsible for the deaths of between three and five women a year as well as between 500 and 600 babies.

It is potentially life-threatening to mother and baby if allowed to develop and progress undetected.

Pre-eclampsia is curable only by delivery, which puts some babies at risk of death from prematurity. Pre-eclampsia cannot be predicted, reliably prevented or treated to allow the pregnancy to continue. Although first identified more than 150 years ago, its prime cause remains unknown.

Who is most at risk?

Most at risk are first-time mothers; the over-40s; those with a BMI over 35; women with a family history of pre-eclampsia; where it is ten years or more since a last baby; those suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes or kidney disease; those carrying more than one baby and those who have had it before.

What are the signs?

High blood pressure, protein in the urine and in some cases severe swelling (oedema) in the mother and, sometimes, poor growth in the baby - all of which should be detected by routine ante-natal checks.

The size of the global problem.

Pre-eclampsia is a massive problem throughout the globe. Every year pre-eclampsia is developed by between 1.5 and 8 million women. Of these women, approximately 150,000 have eclamptic convulsions. It is believed that, conservatively, between 40,000 and 60,000 women die each year and approximately 12% of their babies die within the first month. Globally, pre-eclampsia is associated with approximately 4,000,000 growth restricted babies.

For more information please visit Action on pre-eclampsia