Our secondary hypothesis was that patients with hypertensive disorders who received homogeneous, tertiary hospital-based continuity of prenatal care, even if they were diagnosed with pregnancy hypertension in the first trimester because of the patient's preference or the awareness of disease severity, had more severe maternal complications and poorer fetal outcomes than patients who received heterogeneous care at local medical clinics initially, and were then subsequently referred to a tertiary hospital. Therefore, the latter was defined as discontinuity of prenatal care.