Association between migraine and pre-eclampsia among pregnant women: a single hospital-based case-control study in India

• Published in: BMC pregnancy and childbirth Vol. 24; no. 1; p. 373
• Main Authors: Biswas, Shyamashree, Singh, Ranjana, Radhika, A G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central 16-05-2024; BMC
• Subjects: Adult; Blood pressure; Case-Control Studies; Classification; Data collection; Diabetes; Female; Gestational age; Headaches; Hospitals; Humans; Hypertension; India; India - epidemiology; Logistic Models; Lupus; Migraine; Migraine Disorders - epidemiology; Nervous system; Population; Pre-eclampsia; Pre-Eclampsia - epidemiology; Preeclampsia; Pregnancy; Premature birth; Risk Factors; Sample size; Systematic review; Tertiary Care Centers; Womens health; Young Adult; India; Pregnancy; Pre-eclampsia; Migraine; India
• ISSN: 1471-2393; 1471-2393
• DOI: 10.1186/s12884-024-06567-z

Pre-eclampsia and migraine share some similar aspects of pathophysiology such as vascular function, platelet activation, and enhanced clotting. A few observational studies from different demographics showed that pregnant women with a history of migraine were at higher risk of developing pre-eclampsia. However, there is no such evidence available from the Indian context. Hence, a hospital-based case-control study was conducted among Indian women to determine the association between migraine and pre-eclampsia.
It was a single-centre case-control study in a tertiary care hospital in India. Cases were pregnant women with clinically diagnosed pre-eclampsia, and controls were normotensive pregnant women. Migraine was diagnosed with a questionnaire adapted from the "International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD), 3rd Edition" by the International Headache Society, (IHS). We performed logistic regression to explore the association between migraine and pre-eclampsia.
One hundred sixty-four women (82 women per group) were enrolled. The mean age among the cases (24.5 years, standard deviation of 2.4 years) was slightly higher than the mean age of the controls (23.5 years, standard deviation of 2.5 years) with a p-value of 0.006. We found that women with a history of migraine were more likely to develop pre-eclampsia (Adjusted Odds Ratio 6.17; p-value < 0.001, 95% Confidence Interval of 2.85 to 13.62).
The current findings suggest a significant association between migraine and pre-eclampsia aligning with previous study findings; nevertheless, larger follow-up studies including women from different states in India are needed.