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 .
Magnesium sulphate for pre‐eclampsia and eclampsia: the evidence so far
Eclampsia remains a rare , but serious , complication of pregnancy , estimated to complicate around 1 in 2000 deliveries in Europe and other developed countries ( Douglas & Redman 1992 ) , and from 1 in 100 to 1700 deliveries in developing countries ( Crowther 1985 ; WHO lnternational Collaborative Study of Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy 1988 ) ; eclampsia is associated with 10 % of maternal deaths and approximately 50000 women die each year having had an eclamptic convulsion ( Duley 1992 ) . Much of the recent debate about management of women with eclampsia has focused on control of convulsions .  Anticonvulsants are given to prevent the first fit in women who have fulminating pre-eclampsia and to prevent further convulsions in women who already have had an eclamptic fit . Although these indications are related , women who have pre-eclampsia are likely to be less sick than those with eclampsia . The potential for benefit or for harm will , therefore , be different , and the effectiveness of anticonvulsants should be evaluated separately for these two situations . For well over half a century , magnesium sulphate has been advocated for the care of women with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia , yet its use remains controversial ( Donaldson 1992 ) . In the past , the lack of a sound hypothesis for the mechanism by which magnesium sulphate might act as an anticonvulsant has contributed to this . Recent plausible suggestions are that it may act by vasodilatation and subsequent reduction of cerebral ischaemia ( Belfort & Moise 1992 ) ; an alternative is by blocking some of the neuronal damage associated with cerebral ischaemia ( Goldman & Finkbeiner 1988 ) . Reflecting ongoing uncertainty about its role , use of magnesium sulphate continues to vary enormously . In the United States , for example , magnesium sulphate is the anticonvulsant of choice for women with either eclampsia or pre-eclampsia ( Consensus Report 1990 ) , while in the United Kingdom it is used by only 2 % of obstetricians ( Hutton et al. 1992 ) . What is the evidence that magnesium sulphate given to women with either pre-eclampsia or eclampsia does more good than harm ? The popularity of . magnesium sulphate in North America ( and elsewhere ) is largely based on reports of a few hundred women with eclampsia who were treated with magnesium sulphate  ( Pritchard et al. 1984 ) . Whilst sometimes impressive in the number of women included , none of these reports included any form of comparison or control group . Without comparison , it is impossible to know whether the good or bad outcome for the women was due to magnesium sulphate or to a combination of other factors , such as the severity of disease , health status of the women , or to additional interventions . The effectiveness of an intervention , such as magnesium sulphate , is best evaluated by systematic review of all relevant r and omised trials . In the perinatal field , a system for preparing and maintaining review s of the effects of health care already exists ( Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Data base 1993 ) . The evidence presented here is derived from review s published on this data base
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 .