SAN ANTONIO — Heart disease is the leading cause of maternal deaths in the U.S., and Hispanic women have a much greater risk of health problems during pregnancy than non-Hispanic women.
The reason: Hispanic women have a genetic predisposition to cardiovascular disease like hypertension and diabetes. That's why it is so important to know your risk factors and family history.
"Unfortunately, many times women come to us for the first time ever when they are pregnant because of a complication of the risk factors," said Dr. Johanna Contrares, a fellow from the American Heart Association and representative of the "Go Red For Women" Campaign. "So it can be really hard to prevent and (it) puts the mom and baby at a high risk of mortality."
Some of the risk factors for heart disease among Hispanic women include women who are overweight or obese, those with a sedentary lifestyle, women with high blood pressure, and those diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes.
So how else can you lower your risk?
"It's very important that women get to sleep and to control this stress, because many times we need to find ways, healthy ways, to cope with the stress," Contrares said.
Over a third of Hispanic women have high cholesterol, and four out of 10 suffer from high blood pressure. In addition, close to eight out of every 10 Hispanic women are overweight or obese while more than four out of every 10 have cardiovascular disease and many don't know it.
So why is Hispanic maternal mortality skyrocketing?
"Many factors genetic predisposition, lack of preventive care, lack of access to care, inequalities in health care," Contrares said. "We know that many people don't have facilities to be able to see health. So we're looking at those factors."
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