An expecting mom’s headache seemed normal. It was an early warning sign of an alarming condition

At every step of her third pregnancy, Jennifer Tavares was told everything was normal. She had already welcomed two healthy daughters and was now pregnant with her third child — her first boy. At 31 weeks, she was still working normal hours as a nurse practitioner at a New Jersey hospital. 

Then, on one Saturday, she woke with a headache. It was easy enough to dismiss the pain. As a busy working mom, headaches weren’t “abnormal,” Tavares told CBS News; there were “a million reasons” why she might have one. But later, while having breakfast, Tavares noticed swelling in her body. 

“I started to put the pieces together that this wasn’t something that was normal for me, and it wasn’t something that was necessarily normal for pregnancy,” Tavares said.

Still, she didn’t want to panic, even as her headache began to worsen. She started to suspect that she had preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that causes swelling and high blood pressure. She ordered a blood pressure cuff for same-day delivery. When it arrived, she checked her blood pressure. The numbers were high — and continuing to rise. 

“You go through this period of ‘Is this really happening? Is this not happening?’ And it was happening,” Tavares said.

Tavares and her husband went to Morristown Medical Center, the same hospital where she worked, and her suspicions were confirmed: She was diagnosed with preeclampsia. For three days, doctors worked to stabilize her condition, before eventually deciding to deliver her baby nine weeks early because of the risk the preeclampsia was posing. The delivery went smoothly, and the baby was transferred to the NICU for observation. But Tavares’ symptoms kept escalating. 

“In some women after delivery, blood pressure can improve and normalize,” Dr. Amy Ahnert, Tavares’ cardiologist and the director of the Women’s Heart Program at Morristown Medical Center, said. “Unfortunately, with Jen, it was the opposite.” 

Preeclampsia and high blood pressure  

The raised blood pressure caused by preeclampsia can result in serious side effects including organ damage, seizures and even death. Some people — like Tavares — may be diagnosed with preeclampsia with severe features, which means a patient has extremely elevated blood pressure and is at increased risk for major complications, even after giving birth. 

After her diagnosis at the hospital, Tavares was moved from the obstetric floor to the cardiac floor. Ahnert said that most of the time, preeclampsia resolves during the postpartum period, but patients like Tavares may experience the symptoms for months.

“I was hopeful that my situation would change after delivery, and it was hard when it didn’t,” Tavares said. “Nothing was normal anymore.” 

The diagnosis of preeclampsia with severe features meant Tavares would need blood pressure medication and regular follow-up care. The experience was a “roller coaster,” she said. 

“There were times when we would taper down, and then we would have to go back up because my blood pressure would go back up,” Tavares said. “Blood pressure up and down, meds up and down, emotions up and down.” 

Long-term effects of preeclampsia 

For most of history, preeclampsia was considered a serious but short-term complication that only affected pregnant people and could be resolved by giving birth, with little understanding of long-term effects like the ones Tavares experienced, Ahnert said.

Even less recognized was a phenomenon called postpartum preeclampsia, which is when a person is diagnosed with preeclampsia after giving birth, said Dr. Anais Hausvater, the co-director of NYU Langone’s Cardio-Obsteterics program. Postpartum preeclampsia can be diagnosed up to six weeks after birth, said Hausvater, who was not involved in Tavares’ care. 

In January 2025, the American Heart Association warned that preeclampsia can be a significant risk factor for future cardiovascular disease. Patients who have preeclampsia of any kind have a risk of developing chronic hypertension up to 25 times higher than those who give birth without preeclampsia, Hausvater said. Even five years later, the risk of developing chronic hypertension remains up to 10 times higher. Chronic hypertension is a known risk factor for cardiac disease, Hausvater said.  

Preeclampsia also causes a higher risk of developing premature atherosclerosis, a chronic disease that causes arteries to harden, Hausvater said, or experiencing heart attacks, strokes and heart failure, even decades after giving birth. It’s a “lifelong risk factor,” she said. 

Meanwhile, doctors are seeing more cases of preeclampsia. Both Hausvater and Ahnert say they see it frequently in their own practices. Ahnert said rates of the condition have doubled since 2014. Hausvater said that there’s no one reason for the growth, but said more pregnancies later in life and more pre-existing cardiac conditions in patients could be factors. Doctors are also doing more to monitor for the condition, she said, which leads to more diagnoses. Even still, Hausvater said there “is still something unexplained about why we’re seeing so much of it.” 

Advocating for education 

Seven months after welcoming her son, Tavares is still feeling the effects of preeclampsia. Her blood pressure is usually normal — but not always, she said. She remains on medications and has regular follow-up appointments. She’s made peace with the fear that came with her diagnosis, and her family is happy and healthy. 

Now, she wants to use her experience to make sure other expecting parents know the risks and warning signs of preeclampsia. 

“I was very fortunate that I had a little bit of knowledge to be able to help myself,” Tavares said. “There’s so much education that we need to do for the maternal population, for the provider population, just for everyone. I want other people to benefit from the trauma I had, so hopefully they’re able to survive what they need to get through.”