Haemorrhagic Stroke in Pregnancy

Abstract

Stroke in pregnancy is rare, with a reported incidence of 8.9 to 67.1 per 100 000 deliveries. With significant improvements in antenatal and intrapartum care, stroke has become the leading non-obstetric cause of maternal mortality in high-income countries such as Canada, United States, United Kingdom, and Japan. Strokes are classified as ischaemic (arterial or venous) or haemorrhagic (subarachnoid or intracerebral). Asians have more haemorrhagic strokes than ischaemic strokes in pregnancy than Caucasians. We report three patients who had haemorrhagic stroke in pregnancy with various causes, symptoms, treatments, and outcomes, and then review the literature on haemorrhagic stroke in pregnancy.