Preventing pregnancy-induced hypertension: Are there regional differences for this global problem?

Developing countries have had persistently higher rates of maternal and child mortality due to pre-eclampsia in comparison with developed countries. Moreover evidence from studies of interventions to prevent pre-eclampsia have given contradictory results. In this review we discuss the underlying causes of pre-eclampsia and the results of clinical trials performed to prevent this disease that support the proposal that the causes and strategies to prevent pre-eclampsia are different in developed and developing countries. We also suggest that the establishment of an adequate prenatal care is the only effective way to reduce the incidence of pre-eclampsia in populations from developing countries especially in women at high risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension. (authors)