A study by Rutgers Health experts of more than 31 million hospital records shows that infertility treatment patients were twice as likely as those who conceived naturally to be hospitalized with heart disease in the year after delivery.

The work is published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Patients who underwent infertility were particularly likely—2.16 times as likely as those who conceived naturally—to undergo hospitalization for dangerously high blood pressure or hypertension.

"Postpartum checkups are necessary for all patients, but this study indicates they are particularly important for patients who undergo infertility treatment to achieve a conception," said Rei Yamada, an obstetrics and gynecology resident at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and lead author of the study.