Is migraine a risk factor in pregnancy?

Most epidemiological studies demonstrate that women suffering from migraine note significant improvement of their headaches during pregnancy. It is generally supposed, by both headache specialists and gynaecologists, that migraine does not involve any risk to the mother or the foetus. Specific investigations of the medical complications of pregnancy in migrainous women, however, have recently cast doubt on this assumption. Most studies, indeed, have revealed a significant association between migraine and hypertension in pregnancy (i. e., preeclampsia and gestational hypertension). Migraine has also been recently postulated as one of the major risk factors for stroke during pregnancy and the puerperium. There is thus an urgent need for prospective studies of large numbers of pregnant women to determine the real existence and extent of the risks posed by migraine during pregnancy.