Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia more than double the risk of hospitalisation for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction in the decade following pregnancy, a large cohort study shows.

This was independent of traditional risk factors, the US authors say, and cements the role of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy for future cardiovascular disease.

In addition to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), the results also suggest that pre-eclampsia and eclampsia increase the risk of HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Writing in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the team analysed data from 2.5 million women — 128,000 of whom had a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy — who had a hospital delivery between 2006 and 2014.