Page 144 - Pro-active Management of Women’s Health after Cardiometabolic Complicated Pregnancies

142 | Part 3 Lifestyle intervention
METHODS
Participants
Patients with pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction and/or gestational diabetes, who delivered in the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam between November 2004 and October 2006, were invited to participate in the focus group interviews. After searching hospital records, 182 patients were selected and invited by mail.
Preeclampsia was defined according to the criteria of the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy (ISSHP): development of systolic blood pressure  140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure  90 mmHg after 20 weeks of gestation in a previous normotensive woman plus proteinuria. Proteinuria was defined as a 24-hour urine collection containing at least 300 mg of protein5.
Intrauterine growth restriction due to placental insufficiency was defined as an ultrasonic fetal abdominal circumference below the fifth percentile in combination with a pulsatility index of the umbilical artery > p 95 or absent or reversed end diastolic flow242. Gestational diabetes was diagnosed in case of at least one abnormal result (fasting>= 7.0 mmol/l or two hours>= 7.8 mmol/l) of a two-hour 75-gram oral glucose tolerance test257 258.
A pregnancy complication was defined as severe if the gestational age at delivery was less than 32 weeks, the newborn was admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, or resulted in perinatal death.
Procedure
Six focus group interviews were held at the Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, between December 2006 and February