Her warning was ignored — now a Princeton mom is fighting a deadly pregnancy threat

⚠️ More than 80% of maternal deaths in New Jersey are considered preventable, and many involve complications like preeclampsia

💔 A Princeton woman’s near-fatal pregnancy experience highlights how symptoms are often dismissed and why earlier screening and monitoring could save lives.

🏛️ New Jersey lawmakers and new medical technology are pushing for reforms and predictive tools to detect preeclampsia earlier and prevent tragedy.

More than 80% of maternal deaths in New Jersey are considered preventable, and 60% of preeclampsia cases could be prevented with better awareness, monitoring, and follow-up care.

Preeclampsia is a potentially fatal high blood pressure disorder that can develop during pregnancy.

One New Jersey woman is part of the effort to help clinicians identify preeclampsia risk earlier and shift care from reactive to proactive.

NJ woman’s near-fatal pregnancy reveals dangers of missed preeclampsia symptoms

Princeton native Lia Butler is not only the director of sales, marketing, and business development for NeoPredics, which develops cutting-edge technology to help clinicians predict these health risks, but she is also a preeclampsia survivor.

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Butler’s story is, unfortunately, a common scenario that pregnant women with preeclampsia experience far too often.

Seven years ago, Butler was pregnant. While she was not considered high-risk, she had slightly creeping blood pressure, but her doctors were not overly concerned. But Butler said something did not feel right. She knew her body, and something was off. She began monitoring herself at home.

Butler did this despite having her concerns dismissed and not being given any instructions on how to monitor her blood pressure. As the pressure kept rising, she went to the hospital. It was determined she had preeclampsia, and her kidneys were in distress.

She was put on magnesium to help prevent seizures. Her daughter was delivered within an hour of being at the hospital.

Luckily, Butler’s daughter is OK. She is 7 years old and thriving, but Butler’s issues continue.

“And because of this, I have lifelong consequences, all of which could’ve been avoided had my provider was a little bit more attentive and taken my concerns more seriously,” Butler said.

She has long-term cardiovascular issues and episodic high blood pressure due to kidney damage from the preeclampsia. Unfortunately, women who suffer from preeclampsia face mortality much earlier than those who don’t, and have higher risks for stroke and heart attack, and other issues.

Long-term health risks linked to preeclampsia

This experience has led Butler to a career in which she can focus on improving outcomes for women and children through her work in medical technology and predictive algorithm development, specifically for preeclampsia.

Symptoms of preeclampsia are either missed or dismissed. Unfortunately, there are no laws in place that would require clinicians to take symptoms seriously or conduct further evaluations, so many minor symptoms are missed. Women are treated as a “one-size-fits-all,” and that is not true, Butler explained.

Pregnancy care often waits too long to act, putting women at more risk.

“With new technology and with hopefully new laws being put into place, it’s going to support a more proactive approach and we’re not having to play catch-up but we can actually see disease before it progresses to that point and we can start doing things in a preventative way and in a personalized way,” Butler said.

Instead of putting women in high, medium and low-risk buckets, each woman is looked at and treated individually, she added.

New Jersey legislation aims to improve preeclampsia monitoring and prevention

Three bills are pending in the Legislature that aim to address preeclampsia head-on.

Preeclampsia Evaluation Mandate (A2188) – This bill would require birthing centers to adopt formal policies to evaluate any patient presenting with symptoms of hypertensive disorders.

Home Blood Pressure Monitoring Coverage (A2200/S1500) – This bill would require Medicaid and private insurers to cover the cost of validated home blood pressure monitors. Right now, there’s not much coverage or education for women on how to monitor themselves at home. Insurers would also have to reimburse the time providers spend training patients to use the devices and interpret their readings.

The Blue Band Program (S299) – This would provide blue wristbands to at-risk individuals to immediately alert ER staff and other providers of a preeclampsia risk. “The idea here is to provide a low-cost way of creating a visible alert system to improve awareness, coordination, and early intervention,” Butler said.

Ultimately, all these things are going to move towards reducing maternal harm and contribute to the reduction in maternal morbidity and mortality.

“I think New Jersey is quite progressive here in doing a good job of raising awareness around this issue,” Butler said.

New predictive technology could transform pregnancy care

Technology is also moving in the right direction. Butler’s company, NeoPredics is trying to get FDA approval in the U.S. for a solution that would predict preeclampsia. While laws are coming into place, this technology would predict which women will develop severe symptoms.

“As technology continues to move forward, I think we’re really going to see a shift over the next 10 years in our healthcare system and how we approach health,” Butler said.

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