In a significant step towards improving heart health for women, postdoctoral researcher and medical scientist Dr Emily Aldridge is pioneering research into cardiometabolic risk factors after a complicated pregnancy.
Thanks to your compassionate donations, this work will better educate women who have experienced a serious complication during pregnancy, which increases their risk of heart disease.
Over 30% of Australian pregnancies are affected by at least one of these complications, a figure too high to ignore when considering the long-term health risks.
“Pregnancy can be looked at as a ‘cardiovascular test’, because a woman’s body needs to go through a lot of physiological and vascular changes to support a healthy pregnancy,” Dr Aldridge explained.
“Women who have one of these complications during pregnancy are at a much higher risk of developing heart disease or type 2 diabetes in the future compared to women who have healthy pregnancies.”
With a fresh grant from Australian Heart Research (AHR), Dr Aldridge will conduct a 12-month trial through Lyell McEwin Hospital’s COFFEE Clinic to assess the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving women’s cardiometabolic health after childbirth.
These interventions will be patient specific, including lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise, referrals to allied health services and when necessary, medications.
“I will randomise women into three different groups to test whether the interventions help improve their health,” Dr Aldridge explained.
“The results from this study will help guide our future research projects and possibly the structure of the clinic.”
Dr Aldridge’s work could influence future health services and provide a framework for reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease on women worldwide.
“The potential for this research to change the future of postpartum care is immense, and we are excited to see the impact of our work, thanks to AHR’s generous donor community.
*COFFEE is an abbreviation of ‘Cardiovascular assessment after Obstetric complications: Followup For Education and Evaluation’
