Represenation pic: A Nigerian woman gives birth to a boy four years after getting pregnant
Represenation pic: A Nigerian woman gives birth to a boy four years after getting pregnant Reuters

Several studies have been conducted in the past that linked cardiovascular disease to obese people and those suffering from high cholesterol levels. A recent study, however, strangely links pregnancy loss with cardiovascular diseases, stating that women with a history of pregnancy loss were at a higher risk of developing a cardiovascular disease. The report was completed by physicians in the Centre for Primary Care and Prevention (CPCP) at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island and published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

According to Donna Parker, ScD, director for community health and research with the CPCP, the article "Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Among Postmenopausal Women with Prior Pregnancy Loss: The Women's Health Initiative" was based on the observation of the data on the maternity experiences of a sample of 77,701 women. Out of which 30 per cent reported a history of miscarriage, 2.2 per cent a history of stillbirth, and 2.2 per cent a history of both.

Dr Parker said, "We found that the adjusted odds for coronary heart disease in women who had one or more stillbirths was 1.27 (95 percent confidence interval (CI), which is a measure of reliability, 1.07-1.51) compared with women who had no stillbirths. For women with a history of one miscarriage, the odds ratio was 1.19 (95 percent CI, 1.08-1.32). For women with a history of two or more miscarriages, the odds ratio was 1.18 (95 percent CI, 1.04-1.34) compared with no miscarriage."

This makes it evident that there is a strong link between ischemic stroke and pregnancy loss. She said that this link was independent of hypertension, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio and white blood cell count.

These findings, Dr Parker said, show that the inner body changes associated with pregnancy loss like metabolic, hormonal and hemostatic pathway alterations may contribute and lead to the development of coronary heart disease in adulthood.

It is advisable to women who have had miscarriages or even a single still birth to visit a primary care physician and rule out the possibilities of developing a heart disease and also monitoring and controlling risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, obesity, smoking and diet.