Excerpt from WYSO
Research at Wright State University has made progress towards a treatment for preeclampsia. The serious blood pressure condition — which can occur during pregnancy or after giving birth — is estimated to cause more than 500,000 fetal deaths and 70,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year.
But, other than inducing early birth, research has yet to find a treatment for the disorder.
“Extreme prematurity all by itself is a major risk factor for mortality for the baby,” said David Dhanraj is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Wright State and practitioner at Miami Valley Hospital’s high-risk maternal health center.. “We've had multiple cases over the last year where the mom's preeclampsia and preeclampsia related illness was so severe that we were forced to deliver her before the baby was viable just to save her life.”
Dhanraj has been working in collaboration with Thomas Brown, professor and vice chair of research in neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State.
Their research is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
“For us to be thinking there might be some hope on the horizon is certainly what drives me towards working together and trying to move this along as fast as we can,” Dhanraj said. “So many of my patients have gone through some really terrible things and had some terrible losses.”
