Snapshot: Pregnancy-related Stroke

Pregnancy-related stroke is a previously overlooked risk factor. Addressing this issue is of crucial importance, not just because pregnancy-related disorder affects women of reproductive age, but also because it is often preventable. However, it is difficult to determine whether these disorders in the brief nine months of pregnancy may lead to later stroke risk, because of the difficulties in the systematic collection of long-time follow-up data and the control for confounding factors and potential bias. To address this issue, this study sought to conduct a Mendelian randomization (MR) study and discovered preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, gestational hypertension and diabetes as major pregnancy-related disorders that pose increased risks of stroke. This study is meant to provide a comprehensive landscape of stroke risks across different pregnancy complications, most of which are preventable and treatable, thus generating many testable candidates of strong associations. From this perspective, these associations may serve as a pragmatic road map for researchers who aim to investigate pregnancy-related stroke, for clinicians who wish to improve maternal care to prevent stroke, and for patients who need to take appropriate precautionary measures or behavior modifications to reduce stroke risk.