Preterm deliveries may pose long-term stroke risk for mothers

早产的婴儿比足月出生的婴儿面临更多的健康问题，这并不奇怪.

但新的研究表明，同样的情况也适用于他们的母亲.

周一发表在美国心脏协会杂志上的一项研究 Circulation 显示早产的妇女患中风的风险更高. "I'm not sure there's a lot of awareness of this," said Dr. Casey Crump, who led the research.

A full-term pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks. A birth earlier than 37 weeks is considered preterm. 克朗普说，之前规模较小的研究表明早产和中风之间存在关联, as well as high blood pressure, a main risk factor of stroke, "which sparked our interest in looking further."

So, researchers looked to Sweden, 在哪里，全民医疗保健系统“有助于收集大量数据?," said Crump, 他是纽约市西奈山伊坎医学院的家庭医学和流行病学教授.

The result was a study of nearly 2.在1973年至2015年期间生育的200万妇女，以及同年的中风诊断. By the end of the study, 36,372 participants – or 1.7% – had a stroke.

Even after accounting for other risk factors such as smoking, obesity and diabetes, 与足月分娩的妇女相比，早产妇女中风的频率高出42%. 而且怀孕越早，患病风险越大.

"Those risks were the highest in the 10 years after delivery, but they persisted up to 40 years later," Crump said. “最让我们惊讶的是，这些风险持续了这么长沙巴足球体育平台."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 10 births in the U.S. are preterm. 中风发生在大脑血液和氧气不足时，估计会影响到 795,000 people in the U.S. each year. Crump said the study's findings apply both to ischemic stroke, 当动脉堵塞时，将血液输送到大脑, and hemorrhagic stroke, when a blood vessel ruptures in the brain.

"This was an extremely impactful study," said Dr. Amytis Towfighi, 加州大学凯克医学院神经学副教授, Los Angeles. She was not involved with the new research. “这是迄今为止最大的一项关于早产和中风之间关系的队列研究, and it's very well designed."

towfight说，这项研究没有回答的问题是为什么. 这可能与炎症或高凝性(形成血栓的倾向)有关。. But we still don't really know the causal mechanism."

克朗普说，他希望研究人员能进行更多的后续研究，找出这些答案. “这也需要在其他地方和人群中复制, 看看这是否在其他种族和民族群体中有所不同."

In the meantime, however, 两位医生都认为，早产妇女和她们的临床医生应该注意长期中风风险增加的警告.

towfight说，医生“可以建议他们吃健康的饮食, engage in physical activity, 戒烟，定期检查是否有高血压, diabetes and high cholesterol, so that preventive medications can be started, if indicated, to lower their risk of stroke."

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