Introduction Preeclampsia is a multiorgan disease specific to pregnancy most often characterized by hypertension and proteinuria occurring after 20 weeks gestation. It is among the most common medical complication of pregnancy and is a leading cause of maternal/fetal morbidity and…
1 Normal Pregnancy 1.1 Renal Adaptation Normal pregnancy is associated with increases in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 40%–65% and renal plasma flow (RPF) of 50%–85% above nonpregnant levels during the first half of gestation. These increases are a result…
The urinary system, volume homeostasis, osmoregulation, and composition of body fluids are all altered in normal pregnancy. There are also hemodynamic changes involving cardiac output and blood pressure. Knowledge of these changes permits earlier detection of dysfunction as well as…
Editors' comment: When Chesley wrote his original monograph, he, like most of the scientific community, was unfamiliar with the concept of angiogenesis. Even in the multiauthored second edition, in which the endothelial cell hypothesis of preeclampsia was first proposed, the…