Preeclampsia and Sleep-Disordered Breathing: A Case-Control Study

To determine whether sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is more prevalent among women with preeclampsia than among normotensive controls.

Preeclamptic patients admitted to the hospital for observation and normotensive, gestational age matched controls hospitalized for obstetrical indications other than preeclampsia were recruited for an overnight sleep evaluation. Watch-PAT100, a validated wrist-mounted, ambulatory device designed to diagnose SDB, was used to complete all sleep studies.

Twenty preeclamptic patients and 20 controls were recruited. Preeclamptic subjects had a higher mean BMI (32.6± 9.5 vs. 24.5 ± 3.5, P=0.001). Preeclamptic subjects had higher mean respiratory disturbance (RDI, mean difference 4.9 events/hour of sleep), apnea hypopnea (AHI, mean difference 5.7 events/hour of sleep) and oxygen desaturation (ODI, mean difference 4.5 events/hour of sleep) indices, however these differences did not reach statistical significance. Preeclamptic subjects were more likely to have more severe forms of SDB compared to controls (ODI ≥ 5, 20% vs. 0%, p=.047).

Compared to normotensive controls, preeclamptic subjects experience more SDB events and a greater degree of nocturnal hypoxemia. Further research is needed to determine if SBD, independent of BMI, is a significant contributing factor to the risk of developing preeclampsia.