Aspirin's safety in pregnancy questioned.A new study fails to support the belief that aspirin can safely prevent high blood pressure during most pregnancies. Previous research had indicated that daily aspirin use could prevent preeclampsia pre --dangerously high blood pressure that can occur during gestation--in pregnant women at high risk of this condition (SN: 7/13/91, p.22).  e·clamp tic (-t k) adj.Those results led some doctors to prescribe a baby aspirin a day for pregnant patients, even those at relatively low risk of the hypertensive 1. characterized by increased tension or pressure. 2. an agent that causes hypertension. 3. a person with hypertension. hy·per·ten·sive (h  disorder. Despite that trend, no one had ever studied aspirin's safety and efficacy in these low-risk pregnancies. The new research, detailed in the Oct. 21 NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, suggests that the risks of aspirin use may outweigh any blood pressure benefits -- at least for most pregnant women. A team of investigators at medical centers across the country randomly assigned 3,315 healthy women pregnant with their first child into two groups. Women in one group received a low dose of aspirin (approximately one baby aspirin) each day, while volunteers in the control group control group n. got dummy pills. A group used as a standard of comparison in a control experiment. The researchers the monitored the pregnancies, checking each recruit's blood pressure and urine samples. The team discovered that preeclampsia occurred 4.6 percent of the time in the aspirin group and 6.3 percent of the time in the control group. They concluded that aspirin did lower the risk of preeclampsia, but the benefit was small. Aspirin's value appeared to be limited to one very specific group of women -- those who had entered the study with a systolic blood pressure that was slightly elevated although still within the normal range. For most women, aspirin proved far from risk-free. The team found that women in the aspirin group faced an increased risk of abruptio abruptio /ab·rup·tio/ (ab-rup´she-o) [L.] separation. abruptio placen´tae premature detachment of the placenta placentae, a life-threatening condition for mother and fetus in which the placenta separates from the uterus. placenta accre´ta one abnormally adherent to the myometrium, with partial or complete absence of the decidua basalis. circumvallate placenta one in which a dense peripheral ring is raised from the surface and the attached membranes are doubled back over the placental edge. ."Based on our results in this study ... we recommend that low-dose aspirin not be used as a prophylactic 1. tending to ward off disease; pertaining to prophylaxis. 2. an agent that tends to ward off disease. pro·phy·lac·tic (pr  in first-time pregnant women," says study coauthor Robert C. Cefalo of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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