Drug Treatment of Toxemia of Pregnancy

The cause of toxemia of pregnancy is still unclear, and therefore this condition is only treated symptomatically. Edema, hypertension, and proteinuria are the three key elements of this condition, but drug treatment generally targets only hypertension. Although hydralazine hydrochloride and methyldopa have long been used as antihypertensive therapies, newer drugs such as calcium antagonists have also become used frequently in recent years. The clinical use of these drugs, however, raises major issues, since some of them are contraindicated for pregnant women because of excessive fear of adverse drug reactions in the fetus. Conventional diuretics may cause excessive hemoconcentration during pregnancy, and therefore, it has become common practice to use them only in the puerperium. Since toxemia of pregnancy is viewed, in a sense, as chronic disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), anticoagulant therapy with aspirin is a treatment option. This paper describes practical drug treatment of toxemia of pregnancy and the issues involved in light of the aforementioned considerations.