Hormonal dysfunction of preeclampsia - Essay Example

Pre-eclampsia is found to occur most commonly in young first-time pregnant women, first pregnancies with a new partner and in pregnant women over the age of thirty-five (Lloyd & Lewis, 1999). Several complications can arise during pregnancy. Some of these complications may be easy to manage, but there are several problems that are associated with pregnancy that are life threatening to the mother or foetus or both. Management of life threatening complications has improved due to the advances in the knowledge of the complications and through the advances in medical science and technology.

However, the possibility of the development of life threatening complications have increased, with women delaying their first pregnancy and facing the risk of complications in pregnancy that are brought on by increase in age, obesity, hypertension and a variety of other disorders(Crafter, 1999). The common disorders that create complications in pregnancy include cardiac, respiratory, renal haematological, metabolic, infectious, neurological and autoimmune conditions (Lloyd & Lewis, 1999). Pre-eclampsia continues to be a cause of serious concern in the developed world, as it is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the mother and foetus.

The reason why this high rate of morbidity and mortality continues to persist with pre-eclampsia in spite of the advances of medical science is the lack of clear knowledge on several aspects of the disease. This lack of proper knowledge has led to differing perspectives on the definition of the disease, its classification and pathophysiology and effective treatment (Boulanger & Flamant, 2007). Chappell et al, 1999, reviewing literature on pre-eclampsia found that there is seldom any uniformity in the definition of pre-eclampsia.

Since hypertension and proteinuria are easily measured, from a practical perspective they have become yardsticks for defining pre-eclampsia, but the problem with this is that the increase in