Q: My 27 years old friend gave birth to a child 11 days back by C-section. A baby is alright but three days after delivery, she was diagnosed with postpartum eclampsia (convulsion occurred thrice). Now, her blood pressure is under control but as per the doctor her kidney may have got affected due to the protein content urine (proteinuria). How much time will it take to recover? What are the risk factors associated with proteinuria? Is she required to take her medicines lifelong for high blood pressure and kidney problem?

A:Eclampsia can present during the postpartum period in a smaller proportion of women. Proteinuria that develops with this condition usually resolves over next few weeks to months. Sometimes, it can take upto 2 years. A very small fraction of patients will have the risk of permanent kidney damage leading to End Stage Kidney Disease: Based on the largest study on this area, this risk is less than 1% in 20 years. Regarding taking medications for high BP, it depends whether BP improves after some time: About 25% of patients will have persistent high BP requiring life long medications. Also, your friend should be very careful regarding future pregnancies because about 2% of patients with history of pre-eclampsia/eclampsis will have risk of recurrent eclampsia and about 10% will have risk of severe pre-eclampsia with future pregnancies. Please follow up with your nephrologist and obstetrician closely from this point onwards.