Older women often get brushed off when it comes to the issue of pregnancy as many believed that age can increase the risk of stroke during pregnancy. Older pregnant women face greater chances of complications during pregnancy. However, recent studies show that younger pregnant women have a higher risk of stroke.
Stroke, said to be a debilitating condition, arises from brain dysfunction resulting from a vascular occurence. Other causes independent of pregnancy are eclampsia, postpartum angiopathy and amniotic fluid embolus. It is considered devastating whether it occurs in younger pregnant women who are just starting a family or older pregnant women.
Columbia University Medical Center negated claims that the risk of stroke is higher in older pregnant women in a study published in JAMA Neurology. Data showed that 34 out of around 100,000 pregnant women have experienced stroke, which showed the increasing number of strokes associated with pregnancy. However, there were not too many studies that compare the number of strokes in women, pregnant or not.
As reported by Daily Mail, the chances of experiencing a stroke increases with pregnancy although there are few investigations conducted on this concern. It also confirmed that while there is a higher risk of stroke among older women who are pregnant, the risk was almost the same with older women who are not pregnant.
On the contrary, a new study showed that younger women are at most risk for stroke compared to their older counterparts. Medical News Today cited a study by researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center on stroke as the reason for over 130,000 deaths in the United States. Dr. Joshua Willey noted how women postpone childbirth, which increasing the risk of stroke in the process.
Pregnancy has its risks and it cannot be denied that some of these are related to the age of the expecting mother. Although the risk of experiencing stroke increases along with the age of a pregnant woman, there is a greater risk for younger pregnant women up to 34 years of age.
