Blood pressure creeping up... (Part vent, part advice)

Hello,

My BP was normal/high throughout my last pregnancy and spiked at nearly 38 weeks. I don't exactly remember my BP, but it was in the range of low 200's / 160 ish. Hence I was induced and had a vaginal birth 4 hours later. I didn't have much protein in my urine so it wasn't classic pre-eclampsia but my OB believes that it was pre-eclampsia, we just caught it very early.

Over the last week my BP has been creeping up. I monitor my BP in the morning and evenings since it started creeping. At the moment we are generally sitting around the 140s / 95 which I know is the normal/high border.

I'm a bit bummed about this. For some reason I thought that I'd managed to avoid it this time, as my BP has been perfectly well behaved to date. I was hoping to avoid being induced and go into labour naturally. Given my experience last time I'm not stressed as such about my high BP, just more disappointed.

I've started on Aldomet 250 mg twice a day but I suspect I'll be put on a higher dose or a different medication shortly. I'd also planned to re-start regular accupuncture appointments so that will likely also help manage my BP.

Is there anything else I can / should be doing to help manage my BP? I'll take all advice to help me keep it low.

Cheers,
Fiona

Bump


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Honestly, I don't know that there is much else you can do to control your bp. I feel your pain... I spent all of my second pregnancy watching my bp very closely to see it go up and develop into PE during and post labour, but I did get my VBAC so I guess it didn't matter so much. I did get concerned about every headache etc for the last 10 weeks. Not much fun.
Stick to the bp meds that you are given, get the acupuncture and try to relax as much as possible. I know avoiding induction would be ideal but at least you know that you got a good outcome last time despite the high bp and induction. Hopefully it will stay just a bit high instead of critically high and you can get to go into labour yourself. My fingers are crossed for you. :)

My PE started at 30wks with DS, I was in and out of hospital, on bed rest and finally admitted to hospital for 2 weeks before being induced.

I was really hoping to avoided it with my second pregnancy. from 35ish wks it was "borderline" but manageable and everything was going ok. I was pretty bummed. We left it as long as we could, I had a stretch n sweep (on a monday) to try to get things going and she gave me until Thursday to go naturally. In the end I needed another induction.

As long as you have a good OB and everything else is ok with you and bub you should still be able to try to go naturally.

As for things you can do, I was pretty much told to stay off my feet and put them up as much as possible.

:hug: hope it goes well, PE sucks!

i had high BP with my PG & was on aldomet from around 6 or 7 weeks. they upped the dose a couple of times & it did control the BP pretty well. are you concerned that the higher dose won't manage it? i can't remember doses now, but i think they have room to move if you're on the 250mg twice a day?

i'd like to say rest up & take it easy but with a toddler as well i'm guessing that doesn't happen too often :lol:

did your doctor mention any usual lifestyle choices like limiting salt & gentle exercise? other than that, i reckon making sure you let your ob know sooner, rather than later if there are changes/concerns is a good thing - at least that gives you a chance to use medication to see if it can be controlled rather than automatically being induced.

ETA - i managed to avoid being induced due to BP (although was because of GD :wall:) but did have regular monitoring towards the end so they could keep an eye on it.

good luck, hope the aldomet & acupuncture does the trick :)