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Preeclampsia is an illness that usually gets worse once it has started. It can cause problems (complications) in many parts of your body.

You may be frustrated and upset to have to stay in the hospital with severe preeclampsia. This is especially so if, like many women, you feel fine.

But it's important to be in the hospital. That's because your doctor can watch you closely and make sure your baby is delivered before serious problems happen.

Here are the main complications you can get from severe preeclampsia.¹

• Seizures. Doctors call this eclampsia. The seizures make you black out (lose consciousness) for a short time.
• Problems with your liver. This can cause severe pain under your ribs. Your liver swells. It can even burst. But this is rare.²
• Problems with the way your blood clots. Your body's system for making your blood clot may go out of control. You can get blockages in small blood vessels. You can get heavy bleeding (hemorrhage), too.
• HELLP syndrome. This affects your liver and your blood-clotting system. It can lead to heavy bleeding. H stands for hemolysis (red cells in your blood burst), EL stands for elevated liver enzymes (a sign of liver damage) and LP stands for low platelets (platelets are tiny particles that help your blood to clot).
• The placenta pulls away from your womb. Doctors call this placental abruption. It can kill your baby. And it can cause heavy bleeding and other problems for you.
• A stroke caused by a blood vessel bursting in the brain. This type of stroke is most likely to happen if you have very high blood pressure and drugs don't work to bring it down.
• Kidney problems. Your kidneys may not work properly. Or they may just stop working. But they should get better on their own after you have your baby.³
• Eye problems. You can lose your eyesight, but this is temporary.
• Heart problems. These include heart attack and heart failure.
• Lung problems. One of these problems is that fluid builds up in your lungs. Doctors call that pulmonary edema.

Most of these problems are bad enough for you to need treatment in a part of the hospital called an intensive care unit (ICU for short), and to have your baby delivered as soon as it's safe.

But sometimes complications happen during labor or even after delivery. In fact, more women have seizures after delivery than before.³

When women die of preeclampsia or eclampsia, it is because of one of the complications listed above. In the United States, most of these deaths are caused by strokes.^{4 5}

But the good news is that these complications are quite rare in the United States. And it's very rare for a woman to die. One large study looked at women in a part of Scotland over 20 years.⁶ More than 4,100 women had preeclampsia during that time. But only 6 in 100 women got serious complications.

The most common complications were:

• The placenta pulling away from the womb, which happened in about 3 in 100 women
• Problems with blood clotting, which happened in about 3 in 100 women
• Seizures (eclampsia), which happened in about 2 in 100 women.

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.