Beta-blockers appear to be no more effective and probably equally as safe .
It is unusual for women to change drugs due to side effects .
REVIEW ER 'S CONCLUSIONS Improvement in control of maternal blood pressure with use of beta-blockers would be worthwhile only if it were reflected in substantive benefits for mother and /or baby , and none have been clearly demonstrated .
Large r and omised trials are needed to determine whether antihypertensive therapy in general ( rather than beta-blocker therapy specifically ) results in greater benefit than risk , for treatment of mild-moderate pregnancy hypertension .
BACKGROUND Antihypertensives , such as beta-blockers , are used for pregnancy hypertension in the belief these will improve outcome for mother and baby .
OBJECTIVES To assess whether oral beta-blockers are better than placebo , or no beta-blocker , and have advantages over other antihypertensives , for women with mild to moderate pregnancy hypertension .
Antihypertensive treatment in pregnancy: analysis of different responses to oxprenolol and methyldopa.
One hundred and eighty three hypertensive pregnant women were r and omly assigned to antihypertensive treatment with oxprenolol ( 96 women ) or methyldopa ( 87 women ) . Control of hypertension was equivalent in both treatment groups , and in 64 ( 35 % ) cases hydralazine had to be added to the treatment to achieve the therapeutic goal ( diastolic blood pressure below 85 mm Hg ) . Five perinatal deaths occurred , one in the oxprenolol group and four in the methyldopa group . Detailed analysis confirmed a previous report of greater fetal growth in the group treated with oxprenolol ; this trend was present regardless of severity of hypertension and parity . With increasing duration of treatment the differences between the two groups diminished , and there was no difference after 10 weeks of treatment , a finding that may explain some of the reported discrepancies among therapeutic studies . As hypertension in pregnancy may pursue an accelerated course , necessitating urgent delivery , and there is no satisfactory method of predicting the duration of treatment in individual patients fetal benefit is most likely to be achieved by treatment with oxprenolol , provided that there is no maternal contraindication to treatment with beta blockers
Beta-blockers appear to be no more effective and probably equally as safe .
It is unusual for women to change drugs due to side effects .
REVIEW ER 'S CONCLUSIONS Improvement in control of maternal blood pressure with use of beta-blockers would be worthwhile only if it were reflected in substantive benefits for mother and /or baby , and none have been clearly demonstrated .
Large r and omised trials are needed to determine whether antihypertensive therapy in general ( rather than beta-blocker therapy specifically ) results in greater benefit than risk , for treatment of mild-moderate pregnancy hypertension .
BACKGROUND Antihypertensives , such as beta-blockers , are used for pregnancy hypertension in the belief these will improve outcome for mother and baby .
OBJECTIVES To assess whether oral beta-blockers are better than placebo , or no beta-blocker , and have advantages over other antihypertensives , for women with mild to moderate pregnancy hypertension .