Obesity may increase the risk of
hypertensive disorders among both
pregnant and nonpregnant women.
Rates of maternal hypertension have
increased almost twofold in the past 2
decades, an increase that has been
attributed to the concurrent rise in
obesity rates among women.29 In fact,
increases in rates of gestational hypertension
follow the same racial/ethnic
and age variations as rates of preconception
obesity. The possibility of
developing pre-eclampsia among
obese women of reproductive age is
two times more likely than normalweight
women of reproductive age.30
The prevalence of pregestational
hypertension was found to be signifi-
cantly higher among obese compared
to normal weight women (6.3% vs
0.4%) in a cohort of pregnant women.2