A dedicated clinic for the management of pregnant and newly birthed women and birthing people with hypertension, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia will open this month as part of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals’ maternal medicine centre.
The Lancashire Antenatal Pre-eclampsia and Hypertension Clinic, or LeAPH for short, has been developed by Dr Emma Ingram, lead Obstetric Consultant for hypertension, and Sr Lisa Cook, Specialist Midwife for Maternal Medicine, and will run on Wednesday mornings in the Trust’s Antenatal clinic.
As part of the service, pregnant women and birthing people are provided with a home blood pressure monitor, where they can upload their results onto their electronic maternity record, and clinical staff can then view their recordings. The app uses a red-amber-green system, meaning that if a user’s blood pressure is too low or high, advice is available on what to do.
Previously, if hypertension was identified at an early antenatal appointment, there was no clear management pathway in place, which meant women and birthing people were passed between different primary and secondary care areas, with little continuity.
The clinic has been added to the Trust’s maternal medicine centre, which was established in October 2023 following the Independent Review of maternity services in the Ockenden Report. The new centre made the Trust the third centre in the region to offer enhanced maternity services, along with Liverpool and Manchester.
The centre has gone from strength to strength, and one area which was identified for the centre to target was the problem of hypertension in pregnancy, which affects a significant number of pregnancies and can develop into a life-threatening condition for mother and baby.
So, the LeAPH clinic was devised, and Lisa Cook said: “We needed to provide a better service for these women and birthing people, so we have set up the LeAPH clinic as a holistic ‘one-stop shop’.
“If the midwife or GP has identified high blood pressure coming into pregnancy, or if high blood pressure is identified during pregnancy, women and birthing people can come to us, have a holistic clinical review, and a clear management plan which everyone providing care can follow. We can also titrate their medication, make sure they are on suitable medication for pregnancy, and ensure fetal and maternal wellbeing are closely monitored throughout pregnancy and into the early postnatal period.”
Lisa added: “We’re really pleased to get the service up and running. It’s taken a lot of work, but it will be a brilliant service that we’re proud to be able to offer. It’s been an interesting journey, but it is certainly needed. We want to make sure these women and birthing people are well managed, and we want a positive experience and successful outcomes for our families.”
To contact the clinic, please call 01772 524448.If you need advice urgently, contact maternity triage on 01772 524495.
