Page 127 - Pro-active Management of Women’s Health after Cardiometabolic Complicated Pregnancies

3.3 Preferences for postpartum lifestyle counseling| 125 interventions were discussed: face-to-face counseling by a health care specialist
and computer-tailored lifestyle counseling.
METHODS
Participants
Patients with pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction and/or gestational diabetes who had given birth in the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam between November 2004 and October 2006, were eligible for participation in the focus group interviews. By searching hospital records, 182 eligible patients were selected and invited by mail to participate in the focus groups.
Preeclampsia was diagnosed according to ISSHP criteria. Intrauterine growth restriction due to placental insufficiency was defined when the ultrasonic fetal abdominal circumference was below the 5th percentile in combination with abnormal Doppler patterns of the umbilical artery (pulsatility index above the 95th percentile and/or in case of absent or reversed end diastolic flow)242. Patients were diagnosed with gestational diabetes when 1-hour postprandial glucose level was above 7.0 mmol/l243.
A complication was defined as severe when delivery occurred at a gestational age of 32 weeks or less, when the newborn was admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, or in case of perinatal mortality83.
Procedure
The study was approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of the Erasmus University Medical Center. Focus group interviews were held at the Erasmus University Medical Center in December 2006 and February 2007, and lasted