4 Made Up Myths I Wish You Knew About Preeclampsia

Table of Contents

What I Wish You Knew About Preeclampsia

I didn’t know what preeclampsia was until my doctor said, “You have preeclampsia” while I was inpatient for observation at 33 weeks. I didn’t know what that exactly meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. Especially since my doctor automatically told me I wouldn’t go past 37 weeks, but we would take it day by day.

The experience was awful.

You can read more about my experience here and also listen to it on episodes 2 & 3 of my podcast. But what was even more awful was the judgment and comments I faced afterward about it.

There are a lot of myths when it comes to preeclampsia. A few months ago I asked on my Instagram story what myths or comments were told to them about preeclampsia. As well as answering the question. . .

“What I Wish You Knew About Preeclampsia“

Myths I wish you knew about preeclampsia

The most popular answers were:

Blood pressure immediately goes down after delivery (not true, it can sometimes get worse)
It only happens during pregnancy (It can happen postpartum)
You will definitely know when something is wrong (not always, sometimes the doctor catches it first)
The delivery is the cure (It can get worse after delivery and can cause chronic high blood pressure)

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I got a lot of nasty comments about my diagnosis. Some people were hinting at the fact that because I wasn’t as fit as I could be, I caused it. Or because I was too stressed out from my full-time job. One person even suggested the fact that it was my mom’s fault that I had a hard pregnancy. So many bizarre accusations. I wish you knew about preeclapsia, because I couldn’t be the only one that had this experience. I had comments like this, so I asked in my Instagram story my fellow survivors for

Any comments good or bad they received by their preeclampsia diagnosis

Your blood pressure isn’t really that high. (140/90 blood pressure is the number to look out for. That is really high blood pressure. It is considered Hypertension Stage 2 if you get that reading, not in pregnancy)
It isn’t that big of a deal. (Totally gaslighting the experience)
You are overreacting to how traumatizing it was. (Same comment as above)
You should’ve eaten better or worked out more. (Completely false. There is nothing any woman could have done to prevent it. According to the Preeclampsia Foundation website, the most plausible theories focus on the placenta as the cause)
Drink more water (I can’t even comment on this one without rolling my eyes…like how would that even help high blood pressure??)

The next question I asked was

“What do you wish others knew about your diagnosis?”

The answers were the following:

“It came out of the blue! Diagnosed one day then delivered the baby 2 days later”
“It took 3 days for me to know and understand what was going on. And my doctor still didn’t diagnose”
“That it was life-threatening. It wasn’t something small and how sick I actually was”
“How high the likelihood of hemorrhaging after delivery”
“That it was scary as hell”
That I had 1+ years of medical crap to deal with afterward along with PTSD”

The realities of preeclampsia can be easily dismissed by survivors’ friends and family. I know for me it was. I had some people in my life not fully realizing how close to death I was. And some did not understand why I couldn’t “just get over it”. This needs to change.

Survivors need more support. They need their family and friends to surround them and lift them up. Survivors need mental health professionals to help them emotionally heal from the traumatic experiences they went through. And that should be the standard of care. Too many survivors find themselves deep into postpartum depression and don’t know how to dig their way out. Survivors need doctors to help them heal their bodies after birth. The effects of preeclampsia can be long-lasting.

There are many things I wish you knew about preeclampsia. But the main thing I wish you knew about preeclampsia was how hard it is to go through. How hard it is to give birth to your baby early, or go back to the hospital days after birth because of preeclampsia. How heartbreaking it is to feel like your body is broken and has failed. Most of all I wish you knew about preeclapsia so you don’t have to go through what I dis.

These are the things I wish you knew about preeclampsia.

Connect With Me!

Stay up to date with me on our Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and subscribing to my email list.