Postpartum Preeclampsia: Novel Insights Into a Complex Clinical Entity

( BJOG . 2025;132:760–761 doi: 1111/1471-0528.18056) Postpartum preeclampsia (PPPEC) is a recognized and still insufficiently researched condition, and recent evidence is beginning to shed new light on its clinical significance. In the current issue of BJOG , Amar and colleagues provide valuable population-level insights into PPPEC using data from an extensive electronic health cohort covering more than 1.3 million pregnancies in Canada. Within this dataset, the clinical ICD-10 code for newly diagnosed PPPEC was recorded in 0.3% of deliveries. Notably, the study highlights that PPPEC is linked not only with complications during pregnancy and delivery, but it is also linked with risks that extend into future pregnancies. Women diagnosed with PPPEC, when compared with those who remained normotensive, were shown to experience higher incidences of caesarean delivery, placental abruption, hemorrhage, and severe maternal morbidity. The severity of these outcomes was comparable to that seen in women with antenatal pre-eclampsia (APPEC). Most notably, PPPEC was found to increase the likelihood of both APPEC (over 4-fold) and recurrent PPPEC (over 25-fold) in subsequent pregnancies.