Pregnant Women With Severe Migraine Could Cause Birth Complications, New Study Claims

A new study shows that severe migraine could put pregnant women at high risk in acquiring complications during pregnancy and by the time they deliver their child. The research that was released on March 11 by scientists at the Montefiore Medical Center also stated that this issue is most common to women who are 35 and older.

In an article published by WebMD, the lead author of this research, Dr. Matthew Robbins said, "The results of this study were of particular interest because more than half of the pregnant women with migraine experienced some type of adverse birth outcome, suggesting that these pregnancies should be considered high risk."

Neurology Grand Rounds @MontefioreNYC : @mrobbinsmd discusses #migraine and #pregnancy pic.twitter.com/9RoBnB3M3Z

— Cynthia Armand, MD (@cynarmandmd) December 3, 2015

Dr. Robbins and his team sampled 90 women who needed emergency medical attention due to severe migraines during their pregnancy. Results came out stating that 20% of those women were unfortunate to experience a complication called preeclampsia, which means an increase in their blood pressure. Almost 30% of those women experienced premature delivery and 19% of them have delivered underweight babies.

It is noteworthy to state that this research only wants to inform the link between migraines and its possible effect on pregnancy and child delivery complications. The study didn't exactly say that having migraines would automatically cause birth defects and other pregnancy health issues.

The website UPI also got a hold of this news and reported that 62% of those women sampled for the research were given some drugs to alleviate the pain from their migraines during pregnancy. Therefore, the study wasn't exactly sure if those drugs also contributed to pregnancy and childbirth complications.

This particular research would be publicly presented during the American Academy of Neurology's yearly meeting in April in Washington, DC. According to Dr. Robbing, "These findings need to be replicated with a larger number of women, including those who have migraine that does not manifest with severe attacks during pregnancy."