A study by experts at Rutgers Health of more than 31 million hospital records shows that patients undergoing infertility treatment were twice as likely as those who conceived naturally to be hospitalized for heart disease in the year after giving birth.
Patients who suffered infertility were particularly likely (2.16 times more likely than those who conceived naturally) to be hospitalized for dangerously high blood pressure or hypertension.
“Postpartum checkups are necessary for all patients, but this study indicates that they are particularly important for patients undergoing infertility treatment to achieve conception,” said Rei Yamada, an obstetrics and gynecology resident at the School of Medicine. Robert Wood Johnson of Rutgers and lead author of the study. study.
The study’s authors say their results support standards of care that now require an initial postpartum checkup three weeks after delivery, standards that some health systems have not yet adopted. Much of the elevated risk occurred in the first month after delivery, particularly in patients who developed dangerously high blood pressure.
“And these results are not the only ones that indicate that follow-up should be done early,” said Cande Ananth, chief of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical. School and lead author of the study. “We have been involved in a number of studies in recent years that have found serious risks of heart disease and stroke in several high-risk patient populations within the first 30 days after delivery, risks that could be mitigated with earlier follow-up. . careful.”
The study analyzed the National Readmissions Database, which contains nationally representative data on about 31 million hospital discharges and readmissions per year. The database contains diagnosis codes that allow researchers to find specific populations and identify reasons for readmission.
The researchers used data from more than 31 million patients who were discharged after childbirth between 2010 and 2018, including 287,813 patients who had undergone infertility treatment.
Although infertility treatment predicted a very high risk of heart disease, the study authors said the relative youth of patients undergoing infertility treatment kept their overall risk quite low. Only 550 of every 100,000 women who received treatment for infertility and 355 of every 100,000 who conceived naturally were hospitalized for cardiovascular disease in the year after giving birth.
The cause of the elevated risk of heart disease associated with infertility treatment remains unclear. The increase in heart disease could be due to the infertility treatments themselves, underlying medical problems that made patients infertile, or some other cause.
“Looking ahead, I would like to see if different types of infertility treatment and, more importantly, medications are associated with different levels of risk,” Yamada said. “Our data did not provide information about which patients had undergone which treatment. More detailed information could also provide information about how infertility treatment affects cardiovascular outcomes.”