Many women throughout their pregnancy cope well with low blood pressures and perhaps get dizzy often. Not a concern to have low. But a high blood pressure is the more concerning as it is linked with pre-eclampsia and must be closely observed to prevent full blown eclampsia which can also be associated with HELLP syndrome. Both conditions that require close observation in HDU at my unit and need to be delivered soon.

Hiya, like you my BP is lower at home, However my Consultant was very excited about my blood pressure, (it is the same as yours if not a little higher),
I have been entered into a programme where they look after my blood pressure in a normal way (measuring and acting if it goes really REALLY high) and not giving me any medication until then, i was reasured my baby would be absolutly fine as i was no where near pre-eclapsia,
He told me that blood pressure in pregnancy is something they are not to clued up about as a profession, and they are not sure wether they are better letting mothers with borderline hypertension (me and you) get on with it, as some think it better for baby, somthing to do with more blood getting to it, or wethr to give medication and bring it down to "normal" levels.

Me at the moment??? I really dont care about my BP, My baby is average on everything, has a really strong heartbeat, and is grwing..I am fine in myself, and will just carry on as normal

x x

I've just been in hospital today for monitoring because of high BP. When I had my 25 week appointment at the midwife yesterday it was 140/97 and she made me lie down in a dark room for half an hour to see if it went down. If it didn't, she was going to send me to the Borders General Hospital, which is the bigger hospital where I will be giving birth. When she phoned them, they said I should come home and rest yesterday and get it checked again this morning and if it was still high then I should go in. I was monitored every 5 mins on a machine there and it was still really high today. It was the bottom number they were concerned with - they said that the top number is controlled by your emotions like if you are stressed about being in hospital etc. It went down to 87 on the bottom number but I am usually 120/60.

They were concerned about pre eclampsia which is connected to high blood pressure but they don't think I have that because there was no protein in the urine sample. THey also did several blood tests to check my kidneys, liver etc were functioning properly because again these can be affected by high blood pressure.

There is lots of difficulty in dealing with women who have essential hypertension i.e. high blood pressure anyway when not even pregnant. This of course makes professionals twitchy cause you will still get your high blood pressure which can be made worse being pregnant but on the other hand actually be suffering pre-eclampsia.

High blood pressure is worse. I was just being monitored for the past 2 weeks due to them thinking I had high blood pressure. She said if it stayed high she would have to put me on pills for it. Turns out, I was just anxious when going to my appt's because when tracking it for the last 2 weeks it seemed low. She said my lower numbers were fine as long as I wasn't dizzy etc...she said it's common to have low blood pressure during pregnancy.

My blood pressure was 89/63 and so I get quite dizzy a lot of the time. High blood pressure is definately worse as it puts a strain on your heart and there are a lot of associated risks with hypertension.
If your MW was worried she would express concern honey, so don't worry. xx

I believe that both can cause issues and should be monitored. I have high BP, normally and in pregnancy and have been monitored throughout. Yesterday they explained to me that BP when high is ok to live with but it's when it starts affecting our organ functioning that it causes the problem.

So far I've had a great pregnancy but was signed off work yesterday for 2 weeks for my BP.

Nicola xx

Hi there,
I agree that high is probably worse and seems more common than low bp.

And even though 120/80 is what is considered optimal...there is a range for normal bp, which is anywhere from 90/60 to 140/90. So you might be on the high end or low end of that but still be within normal limits!

any change from what is normal either a high drop or high increase. I suspect that the higher blood pressure might be white coat hypertension where your blood pressure increases sometimes quite dramatically in a clinical situation - my mum has it at home her blood pressure is normal to low if she ever gets it done by a nurse it goes through the roof. If you are monitoring your blood pressure at home and it remains stable then I would not worry

i have white coat hypertension and my bp is always up when took but if i can calm down i can get it down to 130/80 but yesterday it was 130/90 but mw wasnt concerned as she knows what im like.xx