Introduction: Nulliparity is believed to be one of the risk factors for hypertension during pregnancy. However, the relationship between parity and out-of-clinic blood pressure during pregnancy is still unknown.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate clinic blood pressure and blood pressure measured at home during pregnancy among nulliparous and multiparous women.
Methods: This study was a prospective cohort study. We examined blood pressure measured in the clinic and at home among 530 normotensive pregnant women who received antenatal care at a maternity hospital in Japan. Clinic blood pressures were obtained by duplicate measurements at each antenatal care visit. The participants were also required to measure their own blood pressures every morning at home while they were pregnant. A linear mixed model was used for analysis of the blood pressure course throughout pregnancy [1]. The SAS package (version 9.2) was used for the statistical analyses.
Results: A total of 315 nulliparous and 215 multiparous women were entered into this study (mean ages 30.1±4.6years and 33.0±4.1years, respectively). Clinic blood pressure during pregnancy among nulliparous women was significantly higher than that among multiparous women (P=0.02/P<0.0001 for systolic/diastolic blood pressure), whereas there were no significant differences in blood pressure measured at home during pregnancy between them (P=0.42/P=0.22 for systolic/diastolic blood pressure).
Conclusion: Out-of-clinic blood pressure levels during pregnancy have been shown not to differ between nulliparous and multiparous women, while clinic blood pressure during pregnancy among nulliparous women is higher than that among multiparous women.
Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier B.V.