Help For Midwives Looking After Women With Pre-eclampsia - a deadly pregnancy disease

Sept. 8, 2009 - PRLog -- Embargo till 11 09 2009 00.01

Keble College, Oxford, 11th September —  The national charity, APEC today celebrates the launch of its new set of guidelines to help midwives detect pre-eclampsia. This disease (formerly toxaemia) is the most common known cause of premature babies and deaths of women in pregnancy. The PRECOG2 GUIDELINE covers care of women in maternity day units where borderline cases of serious disease are assessed. This guideline will be useful to standardise the care offered so all units in the UK operate with the best evidence-based procedures.

Pre-eclampsia affects 1 in 10 pregnancies and has no screening test, treatment or cure. However, tragic outcomes can be avoided by the right medical intervention at the right moment, as PRECOG2 describes. This is difficult as no two patients show the same symptoms, and all symptoms of pre-eclampsia can also be found in normal pregnancies. Management of pre-eclampsia is difficult as the disease is so variable. PRECOG2 has the equivalent of 500 man-years of pre-eclampsia expertise and will therefore be extremely useful.  

Coinciding with this launch, Keble College Oxford hosts a conference of experts in pre-eclampsia including those developing PRECOG2 on Friday & Saturday. This also celebrates the retirement of Professor Chris Redman of the John Radcliffe Hospital who founded the charity and supported the charity’s work in producing medical protocols for this disease. The guideline will be published in full this week by the British Medical Journal.

Patient Quote “I had to go into the hospital Day Unit lots of times and every time I was told something different – I was confused and scared – I don’t think the midwives knew what to do – they kept sending me home and then I ended up having an emergency caesarean” Shamila (APEC Help Line).  

Contact us for interviews with Prof Redman.

www.apec.org.uk

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About Action on Pre-eclampsia The patient support charity for the 30,000 women every year who are at risk of their own and their babies lives from pre-eclampsia. It was founded in 1992. It is the only UK charity regularly producing nationally accepted clinical guidelines.