Younger women, but not older women, have an increased stroke risk during pregnancy and postpartum compared with their nonpregnant contemporaries, a recent study found, suggesting that pregnancy does not increase the risk of stroke in older women. Researchers used several sources of data (from 2003 to 2012) to identify all women aged 12 to 55 years with cerebrovascular events. There were 19,146 women hospitalized with stroke during the study period; 797 were pregnant/postpartum. Researchers found:

• The incidence of pregnancy-associated stroke (PAS) in women aged 12 to 24 years was 14 events per 100,000 pregnant/postpartum women vs nonpregnancy-associated stroke (NPAS) incidence of 6.4 per 100,000 nonpregnant women.
• PAS accounted for 18% of strokes in women younger than 35 years vs 1.4% of strokes in women aged 35 to 55 years.
• Women in the NPAS group vs the PAS group had more vascular risk factors, including chronic hypertension, diabetes, and active smoking, and had higher mortality.