Publications by authors named "Heidi Elisabeth Fjeldstad"
In this review, we summarize how an increasingly stressed and aging placenta contributes to the maternal clinical signs of preeclampsia, a potentially lethal pregnancy complication. The pathophysiology of preeclampsia has been conceptualized in the two-stage model. Originally, highlighting the importance of poor placentation for early-onset preeclampsia, the revised two-stage model explains late-onset preeclampsia as well, which is often preceded by normal placentation.
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- Decidua basalis, the layer of the uterus involved in pregnancy, is crucial for maternal-fetal interaction and is linked to a condition called acute atherosis, which affects spiral arteries and is often seen in complications like preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction.
- Researchers have developed a vacuum suction method to obtain decidua basalis tissue for studying acute atherosis and how it relates to inflammation in pregnancy, since sampling this tissue has been difficult previously.
- The study suggests that various inflammatory and vascular factors contribute to acute atherosis formation, and proposes a link between fetal microchimerism in women with preeclampsia and risks of cardiovascular issues later in life.
Epigenome-wide association studies of prenatal exposure to different environmental factors are becoming increasingly common. These studies are usually performed in umbilical cord blood. Since blood comprises multiple cell types with specific DNA methylation patterns, confounding caused by cellular heterogeneity is a major concern.
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