There is an inherited risk, with women with a family history of pre-eclampsia at greater risk of developing the condition themselves. In the InterPregGen study, researchers from the UK, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan studied how maternal genetic variation influences the risk of pre-eclampsia. These genes have previously been associated with blood pressure, and the FTO variant also with body mass index. Further analysis revealed other blood pressure related variants in the MECOM, FGF5 and SH2B3 genes also associating with pre-eclampsia. However, they only explain a part of the pre-eclampsia risk.
