Jana Sirotiaková, Andrej Dukát, Miloš Mlynček
Hypertension, the most common medical complication of pregnancy, can be a challenging clinical problem. The approach differs considerably from that employed in non pregnant populations. It seams to be very important first consider additional entities in differential diagnosis because of two pregnancy- specific disorders: preeclampsia – a complication associated with substantial maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality- and the relatively more benign disorder, gestational (transient) and chronic hypertension in pregnancy. In addition, there are two patients to deal with simultaneously, the hypertensive mother and her unborn child. Arterial hypertension is a serious complication of 7-10 % pregnancies. Some clinical and experimental studies have brought interesting conclusions which showed the importance of the rational pharmacotherapy. By means of proper antihypertensive treatment it is possible to reduce the frequency of serious events such as preeclampsia and its complications. There is no drug with ideal efficacy and safety which could be routinely recommended as antihypertensive drug of choice during pregnancy. We are in need of more clinical studies providing safe therapeutic approaches in these conditions.