Cardiac autonomic activity in preeclamptic pregnancy

Background: Preeclampsia, a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy is a major cause of maternal and child mortality and morbidity.Although the exact aetiology is not known but many pathophysiological factors were unveiled by recent researches.The association of preeclampsia with autonomic nervous system is not much studied.Objectives: The objective of this study is assessment of the heart rate variability (HRV) in preeclamptic pregnancy to find if there is any difference between preeclamptic and normal pregnancies.Methodology: In this study already diagnosed preeclamptic pregnant and normal pregnant woman of same age group in their third trimester were assessed.Anthropometric parameters like height, weight, BMI, and pulse, blood pressure were recorded by using standard procedure.HRV was recorded by heart rate variability module for lab Chart Software and Power Lab.Result: Pulse, blood pressure were found significantly higher in preeclamptic group.The parameters of heart rate variability TP, HF, RMSSD, SDRR, which represent parasympathetic activities are decreased significantly in preeclamptic group in comparison to the normal pregnant women.Another parameter LF which signifies the sympathetic activity was significantly more in preeclampsia.Conclusion: This study concluded that in preeclampsia, there occurs imbalance of cardiac autonomic activity.There occurs withdrawal of parasympathetic activity with overactivity of sympathetic nervous system in preeclampsia.