Pregnant women who develop pre-eclampsia have six times the risk of chronic kidney disease in the five years following their pregnancy compared with those without the condition, a large study shows.

The findings mean that some women may need to be monitored closely for kidney disease following a pregnancy involving pre-eclampsia, the authors suggest in the BMJ.

The analysis of more than one million Danish women and over two million pregnancies also reveals pre-eclampsia leads to a 4-5 times higher risk of glomerular and proteinuric disease and hypertensive kidney disease in the next five years.

More than five years after a pregnancy with pre-eclampsia, renal risks are still elevated but not as high, with the odds of developing CKD falling to double that in women without the condition.