Published 9 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3129
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3129

Practice

Guidelines

Assessing the onset of pre-eclampsia in the hospital day unit: summary of the pre-eclampsia guideline (PRECOG II)

¹ Action on Pre-eclampsia, Syston LE7 1LD, ² Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford OX3 9DU, ³ Academic Head of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, St James’s University Hospital, Leeds LS9 7TF, ⁴ NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, St Mary’s Hospital, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 0JH, ⁵ John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, ⁶ Horton Maternity Hospital, Banbury OX16 9AL, ⁷ Mourne House, Maresfield Gardens NW3 5SL, ⁸ Royal College of Midwives, London W1G 9NH, ⁹ Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Worcester WR5 1DD, ¹⁰ St Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH, ¹¹ Fetal Medicine, Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, ¹² King’s College London, St Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH, ¹³ St James’s University Hospital, Leeds LS9 7TF, ¹⁴ Royal Victoria Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4LP

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pre-eclampsia remains a leading cause of maternal death, with 72% of pre-eclampsia cases associated with substandard care.¹ One in 10 pregnant women develop partial signs or symptoms (73 000 a year in the United Kingdom); about 20% of these progress to pre-eclampsia.^{2 3} This article summarises recommendations from the Pre-Eclampsia Community Guideline (PRECOG) Group⁴ under the auspices of the charity Action on Pre-eclampsia. The recommendations cover the assessment of women with suspected pre-eclampsia by hospital midwives in day assessment units and complements our previous community based advice.^{5 6}

PRECOG recommendations (see table 1 for definitions used) are based on systematic review of evidence and expert consensus, graded A, B, C, or D; a "good practice point"(GPP) is based on the guideline development group’s experience (box 1). The grading is shown in parentheses after each recommendation.

View this table:   Table 1  Definitions used in the PRECOG recommendations

 

Grade A—Directly based on category I evidence Grade B—Directly . . . [Full text of this article]

Box 2 Liver function (gestation specific values, 95% reference ranges (2.5th centile to 97.5th centile)) in normal population¹¹ and platelet count¹² and creatinine concentration¹³ (pregnancy specific measures)

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The pre-eclampsia community guideline (PRECOG): how to screen for and detect onset of pre-eclampsia in the community

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BMJ 2005 330: 576-580. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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