Pregnancy and chronic kidney disease

This article reviews the association of chronic renal disease and pregnancy. Included are discussions of guidelines for counseling pregnant women with underlying chronic renal disease who are considering conceiving as well as management of those already pregnant. Specifically highlighted are recent studies that question the validity of using estimated glomerular filtration rate and other formulae and questions of whether we should strive to replace the classic counseling approaches based primarily on serum creatinine levels with guidelines based on chronic kidney disease classification. The article concludes with a review as well as a critique of recent research on the prevalence of preeclampsia in women with underlying chronic renal disease, as well as if women with preeclampsia and underlying kidney disease have accelerated courses toward end-stage renal disease.