Pre-eclampsia, hypertension and the premenstrual tension syndrome

A total of 261 of 17,000 pregnancies were complicated by pre-eclampsia/hypertension in pregnancy. Seven to twelve years later 237 were available for follow-up together with 33 women, who had a normotensive pregnancy in 1969-1973. The association between pre-eclampsia/hypertension and the premenstrual tension syndrome has been studied. Women with present hypertension complained significantly (P less than 0.05) more of premenstrual sadness than the normotensive women. However, women with previous pre-eclampsia/hypertension in pregnancy did not have more premenstrual symptoms than women in general, on the contrary, women with a history of severe pre-eclampsia had less symptoms.