Taking vitamin C and vitamin E supplements does not reduce a pregnant woman's risk of developing preeclampsia, according to a study published in the April 27 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the AP/MSNBC reports. Preeclampsia -- which affects about 8% of pregnant women in the U.S. -- is a condition that occurs late in pregnancy when a woman's blood vessels contract, preventing blood and oxygen from reaching the fetus and causing several conditions, including high blood pressure. The causes of the condition -- which causes the deaths of about 76,000 women and infants annually worldwide -- are unknown, and the only effective treatment is delivering the infant (Chang, AP/MSNBC, 4/26). Alice Rumbold, a researcher at the University of Adelaide, and colleagues enrolled 1,877 women living in Australia who were pregnant for the first time, were between 14 and 22 weeks' gestation, had normal blood pressure and did not have a number of conditions that could be related to potential fetal complications (Rumbold et al., NEJM, 4/27). Of the women, 935 randomly were assigned to take four daily pills containing 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C and 400 IUs of vitamin E, while the other 942 took placebo pills. Researchers told the women that they were allowed to take prenatal multivitamins that contained about 70 milligrams of vitamin C and 15 international units of vitamin E (AP/MSNBC, 4/26). The study finds no statistically significant differences between the vitamin and the placebo groups in the percentage of women developing preeclampsia, 6% and 5%, respectively; the percentage of infants who died or were born with "serious" complications, 9.5% and 12.1%, respectively; or the percentage of infants born with low birthweights for their gestational age, 8.7% and 9.9%, respectively (NEJM, 4/27). Women in the vitamin group were more likely to be hospitalized for hypertension than the placebo group, but the researchers said they were unsure of the cause of that finding, the Wall Street Journal reports. "[T]he results of our study do not support routine supplementation with vitamin C and E during pregnancy for women in their first pregnancy," Rumbold said (Tomsho, Wall Street Journal, 4/27). Arun Jeyabalan, an obstetrician at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, said, "Given the information that we have, I would not recommend taking additional vitamins C and E" (AP/MSNBC, 4/26).