Here s another drop in the bucket of needless health scare stories: A study presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago finds that pregnancy increases the risk of heart attack by three- to four-fold. However, a look at the figures for absolute risk shows that this increase amounts to just one heart attack for every 16,000 deliveries. Not quite the crisis that the headlines suggest.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross points out that the relative versus absolute risk needs to be taken into account when discussing these data a difficult task for journalists seeking attention. The scary headlines this story has generated do nothing more than needlessly alarm pregnant women and their families, he says. It s analogous to saying that a person swimming in water is 10 times more likely to be struck by lightning: The absolute risk is tiny because the incidence of lightning strikes is so small to begin with.
As ACSH s Alyssa Pelish points out, This latest story just adds to the already high level of paranoia among pregnant women in the Western world.
The best advice we can offer here? To protect their health and that of their unborn babies, pregnant women should simply avoid reading this latest scare story.
