Does Breastfeeding Lower Blood Pressure in Postpartum Hypertensive Patients

Patients included in this study will have chosen to breastfeed.

• The investigators will identify patients that are planning to breastfeed from their intake questionnaire that all patients receive upon admission to labor and delivery. They will also identify breastfeeding patients while performing our postpartum rounding.
• The investigators will perform a chart review to determine their co-morbidities and current medications. Specifically, the patient information recorded will be age, parity, gestational age, delivery route, vital signs, medications, race, whether they are breastfeeding. Of note, all of the individuals listed to participate in this study have routine access to the patient's charts since they will be working with the patients regardless of their participation in the study.
• Only hypertensive women will be included. Hypertension is defined as persistent Systolic blood pressure > 140 and or persistent diastolic blood pressure > 90.
• Once it has been determined that they have met the inclusion criteria for the study the investigators will ask the patient's attending physician if we can approach the patient and explain the study and obtain consent.
• Once consent is obtained, the investigators will inform the nurse. The patient will have her blood pressure taken prior to breastfeeding, during breastfeeding, and 1-2 hours after breastfeeding. This will occur 3 times in the postpartum period.

Inclusion criteria

• The inclusion criteria include hypertensive women in the first 72 hours postpartum. The gestational age at delivery must be greater or equal to 34wk and the patient must be breastfeeding and/or pumping milk. The study will include patient's on anti-hypertensive. The study will also include patients receiving postpartum IV magnesium but they will have their blood pressure taken two times while on magnesium and two times after the magnesium has been discontinued.

Exclusion criteria

• The study will exclude patient's on dopamine agonist medications or HIV positive.