“The greatest reduction in risk was for women at high risk and those with low baseline dietary calcium intake,” wrote Dr. G.J. Hofmeyr, lead study author in The Cochrane Library.
For the study, Hofmeyr and colleagues reviewed 12 previous studies that included thousands of women from all over the world. In these studies, researchers gave those women with gestational hypertension calcium supplements of varying doses.
Not surprisingly, the additional calcium seemed to help most of those women who already had a low-calcium intake, but a slight reduction in hypertension risk was even apparent in women who ate an adequate amount of calcium.
Hofmeyr suggests that more research needs to be done to confirm the benefit of calcium supplementation for pregnant women and also to establish an appropriate dosage, but this treatment may be a safe, simple solution to a deadly problem.
“It is relatively cheap and readily available,” he wrote. “Also, it is likely to be safe for the mother and the child.”
