Funding outcome

Pregnant women develop larger hearts in order to deliver enough blood to their developing baby, which contributes to changes to the ways her body regulates blood pressure alongside the nervous system. The increased demand on the mother's body when carrying one baby may mean that these changes are even greater in women who are pregnant with twins. We do not yet fully understand how the control of blood pressure is regulated in women who are pregnant with twins. This project aims to address questions that will help researchers create a larger picture of what occurs in the nervous system, and therefore how blood pressure is regulated during pregnancy. Twin pregnancies have not yet been studied in depth in regard to the changes in the heart and blood vessels relating to blood pressure, and this project aims to determine differences between women who are pregnant with one baby, and those who are carrying twins. These results will be compared to non-pregnant women to study changes the women experience in the unique state of pregnancy. By studying the changes to blood pressure control that women's bodies experience during pregnancy, we will be able to find out if there are differences in how the nervous system responds to the stress of carrying one or two babies. This fundamental knowledge is important for researchers to better understand differences in the ways pregnant women's bodies control blood pressure, to a level of depth we are only beginning to be able to measure with recent technology. Future research will be able to apply this knowledge to studies about blood pressure regulation, and therefore a woman and her baby's health during pregnancy.