Pre-eclampsia
Each year, 6.2 million pregnant women worldwide develop pre-eclampsia, causing 30,000 maternal deaths, 200,000 stillbirths, and 240,000 newborn deaths
Burnet Institute is working with global partners to improve how pre-eclampsia is predicted, prevented, diagnosed and managed – particularly in countries where women face the greatest barriers to timely maternity care.
What is pre-eclampsia?
Pre-eclampsia is a complication that develops after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Affected women have high blood pressure, and can have problems with their kidneys, liver, brain and other organs. It can also affect the growth and survival of a baby.
If not detected and managed early, pre-eclampsia can lead to serious complications, including seizures, organ failure, premature birth, stillbirth and maternal death.
How can we treat pre-eclampsia?
Pre-eclampsia is preventable and treatable. Low-cost tools already exist, including low-dose preventive aspirin for women at high risk, calcium supplementation in settings where dietary calcium is low, and magnesium sulphate for women with severe pre-eclampsia or eclampsia. But these tools do not always reach the women who need them most.
Why is pre-eclampsia still a problem?
Pre-eclampsia can often be prevented, detected and treated, but proven interventions still do not reach enough women.
At the same time, health systems need new and better tools to identify risk earlier, improve diagnosis, and treat severe disease more effectively.
We need to use the tools we already have more effectively and we also need to research and develop new and better tools.
Burnet’s research focuses on bringing practical, scalable solutions that can be used in real-world health systems.
Our expertise in pre-eclampsia
Burnet brings together expertise in maternal and newborn health, epidemiology, clinical trials, implementation science, diagnostics, health systems and global policy.
Our pre-eclampsia research focuses on:
- predicting risks earlier in pregnancy
- improving prevention
- strengthening diagnosis and treatment
- translating evidence into policy and practice.
Working group
Our pre-eclampsia projects
MATRIX: Pre-eclampsia, anaemia and gestational diabetes research
Global maternal and newborn health platform
We're gathering data on the care provided to women as well as asking women about their experiences.
SUPREME SECURE project: maternal health care access
SUPREME SECURE improves access to care for pre-eclampsia and anaemia, helping women and newborns receive timely, life-saving treatment.
Global collaboration to prevent pre-eclampsia with aspirin: the PEARLS trial
PEARLS is the world’s largest study on aspirin use to prevent pre-eclampsia.
Accelerating Innovation for Mothers (AIM) 2.0
Globally, approximately 287,000 women die every year from pregnancy-related conditions and complications, with most of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although investment in global maternal health has increased in the past 30 years, research and development (R&D) of new products has been a neglected area.
Pre-eclampsia stories
Pre-eclampsia risk screening for women in low- and middle-income countries: study
Burnet to conduct a landmark study identifying women at risk of pre‐eclampsia in low‐ and middle‐income countries.
Landmark trial study on use of aspirin to prevent pre-eclampsia
Burnet will be a trial implementing partner in a landmark trial study on the use of aspirin to prevent pre-eclampsia.
New insights into medicines for pre-eclampsia
Burnet researchers have led the development of the first global strategic guidelines for medicines to prevent and treat pre-eclampsia.