The Associated Press

The genes of both fathers and mothers appear to play a role in pre-eclampsia, a dangerous and sometimes deadly pregnancy complication that is on the rise among American women, a study found.

The finding may eventually help doctors understand the mysterious condition and find ways to treat and prevent it, researchers at University of Utah School of Medicine said.

They found that women whose own births were complicated by pre-eclampsia were three times more likely to develop the condition when they became pregnant. That confirmed earlier findings that mothers could pass an increased risk to daughters.

But the researchers also showed for the first time that men whose births were complicated by pre-eclampsia were twice as likely to have offspring born of such pregnancies.

The research was reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers combed Utah's extensive medical and genealogical records and studied thousands of births since 1947.

"I don't think you can come way and conclusively say genetics causes pre-eclampsia. I think they're saying that may well be, and I can buy that," said Dr. Joseph Apuzzio, director of maternal-fetal medicine at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

If the results are confirmed, he said, doctors might start asking pregnant women whether their births or their partners' were complicated by pre-eclampsia, and then monitor their pregnancies closely.

Pre-eclampsia, in which blood pressure rises suddenly late in pregnancy, affects only about 5 percent of pregnancies, but the rate rose by nearly a third in the 1990s, according to the National Institutes of Health. Symptoms include swelling of the hands, face or feet; headaches; visual disturbances; and abdominal pain.

Often the problem is controlled by putting the mother on bed rest and a low-salt diet, but sometimes doctors must induce delivery to prevent the woman from going into seizures and to save mother and child.

Among women born of pre-eclamptic pregnancies, 4.7 percent of their own pregnancies were complicated by the condition, vs. 1.9 percent for women in a comparison group. Among the men whose mothers suffered pre-eclampsia, 2.7 percent of the men's offspring also were born of such pregnancies, vs. 1.3 percent of offspring of the comparison group.

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