ABSTRACT
In the past, we believed that pregnancy complications associated with placental disease resolved quickly and completely after the delivery of the placenta. Placental disease was thought primarily and solely to affect immediate perinatal outcome. In the last decade, it has slowly become apparent that placental disease has a long-lasting effect on maternal health as a result of subsequent vascular disease. Women who have suffered from placental complications during pregnancy experience a different health course than those who have had adequate placental function and normal pregnancy outcomes. The enigmatic association between placenta-related complications and long-term maternal morbidity is at the heart of this discussion. It is not yet clear whether future maternal vascular morbidity is a result of preexisting factors preceding placental complications or whether it is, in fact, the diseased placenta that paves the way for the secondary disseminated vascular endothelial insult, later manifesting as maternal vascular disease. Accumulated data from the last decade reveal that some seemingly healthy young women with complicated placental pathologies develop cardiovascular complications when followed long enough.
