I had PIH all through my PG (was 120/85 when i booked in at 11 weeks, went up as high as 162/109 at times) and had white-coat hypertension too, which meant everytime i was sent into hospital to have it done it rocketed. It was for me a complete nightmare as i got SO stressed.

In the end my midwives ONLY took my BP with a sphig (the manual cuff and stethascope) as just the machine itself freaked me out so much, and i had student and qualified MW's who were doing their hypnobirth courses come in to "practice" visualisations on me. TO give you an idea of how scared i was, one day i went into hospital to have my BP done and my fluid levels checked by ultrasound (i was 7 days overdue) and my first BP reading with a machine was 162/109. 15 minutes later, after a calming visualisation with the midwife, it was 101/88 on the machine, and 5 minutes after THAT, with the sphig it was 100/80. I am so scared even now of getting my BP checked! Interestingly the lowest BP reading i ever got was during labour, between 2nd stage contractions, and it was 98/70.

Alan do you also notice a difference with white-coat between the machine and the sphig? And does BP commonly fall during labour/2nd stage?

Bx

ETA the Ob did say i was a freak of nature to have such a labile diastolic rate.