Remote prognosis after eclampsia.

Of 270 women who survived eclampsia in the period 1931 through 1951, all but three were traced in 1974. In white women having eclampsia as primiparas, neither the remote mortality nor the prevalence of hypertension is increased over that in unselected women matched for age. Both are increased significantly in white women having eclampsia as multiparas and in the 24 black women in the study. The excess of remote deaths among the multiparous eclamptic women is accounted for by the lethal consequences of hypertensive disease. Repeated hypertensive pregnancies after eclampsia are often a sign of latent essential hypertension and may precipitate prematurely a chronic hypertension that is in the making. The prevalence of diabetes of late onset is increased over the expected rate in both primiparous and multiparous eclamptic women. It is concluded that eclampsia is neither a sign of latent hypertensive nor of renal disease, and it does not cause chronic hypertension, whatever the duration of the acute hypertensive phase.