About Us | Customer Service | Contact Us | Site Map

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Maternal Hypertension Center

Last updated: 01/05/2007

Printer friendly

Cabell Huntington Hospital and University Physicians and Surgeons have joined together to open the Maternal Hypertension Center, which is exclusively dedicated to treating hypertension among expectant mothers. Under the direction of high-risk obstetrician David Chaffin, MD, the Maternal Hypertension Center offers patients access to state-of-the-art medical technology that helps monitor and control their hypertension. The Thoracic Impedance Plethysmography machine, one of only two of its kind used for pregnant women in the nation, measures cardiac output non-invasively.

"There are two types of high blood pressure. One is where there is too much blood flowing through the veins and one is where there is a blockage," Chaffin said. "This machine helps us tell what is causing the high blood pressure so we can use the right medication to treat the cause. It lets us see what we are doing to the cardiovascular system and allows us to be more aggressive in treating the high blood pressure."

Without treatment, often the outcome for pregnant women with hypertension is an induced early delivery, Chaffin said. "Through early intervention, our goals are to prevent serious high blood pressure in the mothers and keep the baby in the womb longer," he said.

Women who are candidates for referral to the center are pregnant women who have high blood pressure, had toxemia in their last pregnancy, have renal disease or have delivered babies with growth restrictions in previous pregnancies. The Maternal Hypertension Center at Cabell Huntington Hospital is open and accepting patients by doctor's referral only. For more information, call (304) 526-2207.