Underlying cardiovascular risk, rather than older age, drives complications such as venous thromboembolism, cardiomyopathy and heart failure during pregnancy, according to new Weill Cornell Medicine research. The findings may encourage doctors to more actively address cardiovascular health in patients before they become pregnant.

The study, published in Nature Communications, suggests that instead of pregnancy becoming inherently riskier as people get older, it amplifies a person’s baseline cardiovascular risk, regardless of age.

“Pregnancy seems to be a uniform stress test, so to speak,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Hooman Kamel, vice chair of clinical research and chief of neurocritical care in the Department of Neurology and the Helen and Albert Moon Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine.