Blood Pressure in Pregnancy

Hypertension in Pregnancy

Broad commissioning brief advertised by the NIHR HTA Programme, which has resulted in:

STARshiP: Screen and Treat with Aspirin to Reduce Pre-eclampsia

NIHR research in progress

Pregnancy AntihyperteNsive Drugs: which Agent is best? (giant PANDA study)

Addressing priority 9: NIHR research in progress

Around 10% of pregnant women in the UK are diagnosed with high blood pressure before or during pregnancy. The aim of this study is to find out which of the two different treatments currently used in the NHS work best at controlling blood pressure in pregnant women without having troublesome side-effects for the woman or baby.

Bp response Assessment BY Pregnancy ANtihypertensive Drug treAtment: (Mechanism of Action of Health Intervention): BABY PANDA study

Addressing priority 9: NIHR research in progress

The aim of this study is to compare how well blood pressure medicines used to treat high blood pressure in pregnancy work over a short time frame. Previous studies have shown that the medicines commonly used do not work well in all women. This team is doing a large study (Giant PANDA study) of the two main blood pressure medicines, called labetalol and nifedipine to find out which one works best to treat high blood pressure, and to check if there are any effects on the baby. Now they also want to see if there are differences in how well how these two medicines control blood pressure over a short time frame (12-24 hours), and to see if this helps us understand how these medicines work throughout pregnancy.