Women who suffer migraines during pregnancy are at a heightened risk of getting various stroke and vascular diseases, said a U.S. population based case-control study on Wednesday.

The findings, which were published in this week's issue of BMJ, an international general medical journal, found that pregnant women with migraines are 15 times more likely than other women to suffer a stroke, twice as likely to have heart disease and three times more likely to have blood clots and other vascular problems during pregnancy.

"Good prenatal care is essential. Women with persistent and severe migraine during pregnancy should be aware of their risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, history of blood clots, heart disease and prior stroke," the study's lead investigator, Dr. Cheryl Bushnell, a neurologist at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, said.

"There also seems to be a relationship between migraines and preeclampsia, one of the most common and dangerous complications of pregnancy," added Bushnell,

Bushnell and her colleagues analyzed data from 33,956 pregnant women diagnosed with migraine.

According to the study, migraine headache occurs in up to 26 percent of women of childbearing age. The women 35 years and older are more likely to have migraines during pregnancy. Women age 40 and older are 2.4 times more likely to have migraines than women younger than 20, and white women are more likely to have them than women of any other race or ethnicity.

"Migraines, particularly those associated with an aura or visual changes around the time of the headache, have been previously linked to stroke and heart disease in women," Bushnell said. "This study further validates the association between the two."

"Regardless of the cause," Bushnell added, "active migraine during pregnancy should be viewed as a potential marker of vascular disease."

(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency March 11, 2009)