Two thousand years after eclampsia was described, preeclampsia and
eclampsia still complicate 10% of pregnancies yet their cause remains
unknown. They are among the major contributors to maternal and perinatal
morbidity and mortality worldwide. Preeclampsia/eclampsia is also
associated with substantial health problems later in life in both women
and their children. While the global financial burden is difficult to
calculate, the immediate and long-term annual costs can be estimated as
billions of dollars
Global Program to Conquer
Preeclampsia/Eclampsia
2002, World Health Organization
We estimate it to cost the US over $7 Billion alone.
MATERNAL ILLNESS
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy complicate
10% of all pregnancies or the lives of 358,784 women
@ a cost of ~$8,374 per case or
$3,004,457,216
3 Billion per year
MATERNAL DEATH
18% of U.S. maternal deaths -several hundred women
Incalculable
INFANT ILLNESS
81,708 premature births (~15%)
@ a cost of ~$50, 303 per case or
$4,110,157,524
4 Billion per year
ONGOING ISSUES
Baby:
Preeclampsia prompted prematurity is responsible for:
6,000 cases of Respiratory Distress Syndrome per year
@ a cost of $67, 622 per case or
$405 Million
~75,000 of the cerebral palsy cases currently living in the US
15% of blindness, epilepsy, deafness, lung conditions, learning
disabilities, due to prematurity. Cost not fully calculated.
Mother:
Physical
Not well studied. Some studies suggest that underlying conditions are
exposed-such as a tendency towards hypertensive, autoimmune disorders,
etc… No cost calculated at this point.
Psychological:
Very marginally studied. Anecdotally, we see signs of post traumatic
stress disorder, marital conflict and divorce, grief, loss of hope for
a family, feelings of vulnerability that impacts comfort with intimacy,
and spouse-particularly so for the wife who may fear another pregnancy.
Fear for our children when they have pregnancies and fear for our sisters
when they start families. No cost calculated at this point.
The incidence of preeclampsia has risen 40% in the past decade. Yet,
according to the WHO, prenatal conditions rank second from the bottom at
the National Institute of Health in funding*
In developing countries: preeclampsia/eclampsia impact 4.4% of all
deliveries (1) and may be as high as 18% in some settings in Africa (2)
If the rate of life threatening eclamptic convulsions (0.1% of all
deliveries) is applied to all deliveries from countries considered to be
the least developed, 50,000 cases of women experiencing this serious
complication can be expected each year. According to Safe Motherhood.org
of the 585,000 maternal annually(3), 13%, or 76,050, are due to eclampsia.
Villar J, Betran AP, Gulmezoglu M. Epidemiological basis for the planning of maternal health services.. WHO/RHR 2001.
Maharaj B, Moodley J. Management of hypertension in pregnancy. Cont. Med. Educ 1994: 12:1581-1589
"Revised 1990 Estimates of Maternal Mortality: A New Approach by WHO and UNICED". World Health Organization, Geneva, 1996.
~50,000-76,000 deaths a year-no one actually knows
Giving Magnesium Sulfate to all women with preeclampsia in the world's
143 least developed countries could head off as many as 35,000 cases of eclampsia per year.
The WHO includes magnesium sulfate on its essential drugs list-but only about half the world's countries do so-
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