In Healthy Heart, Healthy Parent, Hoppe described the origins of STAC and the program’s trajectory, beginning as a seed grant in 2017 to becoming the standard of care at UnityPoint Health-Meriter Hospital for patients with high blood pressure during pregnancy or delivery:

“It’s the largest [postpartum blood pressure monitoring] program across Wisconsin and one of the biggest in the country too,” says Dr. Hoppe. “And it was all because I felt [there] was a problem with the way we were caring for people and there was a solvable answer. I think it’s the wave of the future.”

Read the whole story here!

**originally published March 2025

Hoppe, who is the principal investigator of the UW PRC Core Research Project Community-Based Implementation of STAC, attended PRC Week with UW PRC Director Jill Denson, PhD, MSW, and Deputy Director Harald Kliems, MA.  

PRC Week 2025 convened PRC recipients, community members, partners, and CDC PRC program staff and other agency leadership to share the goals and research of their centers and leverage the experiences and expertise of PRC recipients to organize the PRC Network for collective impact. 

**originally published February 2025

The Meriter Foundation board invited Hoppe to share an update about her work as it aligns closely with a key health strategy of improving outcomes for parents and babies. Hoppe shared reflections on how STAC, since becoming standard of care at Meriter, has decreased readmissions for postpartum hypertension and reduced maternal morbidity and mortality. 

In 2024, Dr. Hoppe’s STAC program became the Core Research Project for the UW–Madison Prevention Research Center (PRC), a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded center focused on maternal and child health. With PRC funding of $600,000 a year over five years, Hoppe seeks to reduce racial health disparities and improve maternal and infant health outcomes for Black women by offering blood pressure monitoring during pregnancy to catch more instances of hypertension, and work with community-based partners such as doula organizations and public health departments to bring the program outside of hospital and clinic walls. 

Incredible work, Dr. Hoppe!

**originally published December 2024

STAC provides postpartum patients who had high blood pressure during their pregnancy with a blood pressure monitor. The monitor is able to send alerts to nurses at Meriter Hospital to make sure patients are within a healthy blood pressure range during the six weeks after birth, a critical time where complications can arise. These messages can help both doctors and patients decide what management methods like blood pressure-lowering medications are needed.

STAC originally launched in 2019. Now, STAC is extending its resources to bridge the gap in care for Black women, who experience higher levels of hypertension during pregnancy in Wisconsin.

The announcement of the Core Research Project was shared in many media stories:

WKOW’s “Blood pressure monitoring program for new and expectant mothers to expand,” mentioned the program’s expansion to include doula and public health organizations in an effort to connect more with the Black community.

In WPR, “Blood pressure program hopes to reach more new mothers in Dane, Milwaukee counties,” explored the dangers associated with high blood pressure following pregnancy. Hoppe spoke about the risk for stroke and organ damage due to hypertension postpartum.

“Forward Analytics report predicts staffing challenges in senior care industry; Maternal health monitoring program expanding through research project,” found in WisBusiness, elaborated more on STAC’s connection to the Prevention Research Center, with its director, Jill Denson saying, “We are expanding to partner with community advisory boards, community-based organizations, health care organizations and state programs so that they can adapt, refine and implement STAC, and we can share our findings to inform communities, policy, and future research.”

A feature in the Wisconsin State Journal, “UW gets $5 million to improve health for pregnant Black women and their babies,” explained the funding for STAC, which received a $5 million federal grant spread over five years from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

**originally published October 2024

In “Optimal Timing of Delivery for Pregnant Individuals With Mild Chronic Hypertension,” Hoppe and co-authors investigated connections between gestational age and delivery times for pregnant people with chronic hypertension, to see if any change in gestational age improved perinatal outcomes.

“Planned delivery in the early-term period compared with expectant management was not associated with a reduction in adverse maternal outcomes. However, it was associated with increased odds of some neonatal complications.”

Read the full article here.

**originally published August 2024

In “Pregnancy Outcomes of Nifedipine Compared With Labetalol for Oral Treatment of Mild Chronic Hypertension,” co-authors compared the maternal and neonatal outcomes for different antihypertensives for participants in the CHAP (Chronic Hypertension in Pregnancy) trial.

Their research found “there were no significant differences in SGA (small for gestational age neonates) or serious adverse events between participants receiving labetalol and those receiving nifedipine.”

Read the whole article here.

In the corresponding article, “Mean Arterial Pressure and Neonatal Outcomes in Pregnancies Complicated by Mild Chronic Hypertension,” co-authors sought to find an association between mean arterial pressure during pregnancy and neonatal outcomes for patients with chronic hypertension that also were involved in the CHAP trial.

Co-authors found that “increasing average mean arterial pressure per millimeter of mercury was associated with an increase in each neonatal outcome examined except NEC, specifically neonatal composite.”

You can read the full article here.

**originally published June 2024

The HHS Hypertension Innovator Award competition is part of a federal strategy to improve maternal and infant health with a focus on minority communities in the U.S. The award supports programs that ensure pregnant people with hypertension receive appropriate care and follow-up during pregnancy and in the postpartum period.  

STAC was one of 20 programs to receive Phase I funding from HHS in 2021 and one of 15 programs to receive Phase II funding in 2023. This final phase of funding will help support a program expansion to include blood pressure monitoring and health coaching through 12 months postpartum: 

“University of Wisconsin: Staying Healthy After Childbirth is a remote monitoring program that provides a Bluetooth-enabled home blood pressure device to postpartum patients, which increases blood pressure monitoring in the ten days following discharge. In response to gaps in care identified through their previous work, this program has initiated a randomized control trial that aims to expand the success of their current practices by improving blood pressure control and monitoring through 12 months postpartum as well as increasing the adoption of positive lifestyle behaviors related to hypertension and cardiovascular disease among their postpartum patients.” 

Incredible work, Dr. Hoppe and STAC! 

**originally published May 2024

They discussed how common blood pressure issues are during pregnancy, important signs and symptoms to be aware of, and what people should know about their lifelong cardiovascular health after high blood pressure during pregnancy. 

Listen to Fourth Trimester: Heart Health after Pregnancy now.  

Did you know the Women’s Healthcast is available on all your favorite podcast platforms? Whether you like to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or anywhere else, you can find us! (Just search Women’s Healthcast, and while you’re at it, may as well subscribe!)  

**originally published April 2024

The radio story “CDC-Funded Center Prioritizes Birthing Justice” outlines the goals of Hoppe’s STAC program:

“Her research at the Center as a Principal Investigator focuses on the six-week period postpartum, a time that is so often overlooked in medicine. Patients are typically sent home after a couple of days of recovery and many of them won’t see their doctors again until the standard six-week check up. More than 20 percent of mothers in Wisconsin are recorded to have high-blood pressure during their pregnancy or immediately following childbirth.

While most of these patients work closely with their doctors throughout pregnancy and are carefully monitored for any complications, their own health is often neglected postpartum with the chaos of caring for a newborn. This leaves a lot of room for error and even tragedy.”

You can listen to or read the whole story here. 

**originally published May 2023

Kara Hoppe, DO, MS, associate associate professor in the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, developed STAC to address complications from postpartum hypertension. Hoppe’s original program, Staying Healthy After Childbirth (STAC), is a six-week postpartum home blood pressure monitoring program with demonstrated success in improving postpartum care for postpartum hypertension through identifying increasing blood pressures early, initiating outpatient treatment, and avoiding readmission. 

The one-year grant for Staying Healthy After Childbirth - My Hypertension Education and Reaching Target program for postpartum – (STAC-MyHEARTp) will pilot a health coaching and home blood pressure monitoring program for one year postpartum. The program aims to:

Improve postpartum attendance for 12-month hypertension follow-up care among Staying Healthy After Childbirth patients who have chronic hypertension or persistent hypertension at 6-weeks postpartum.

Improve blood pressure control at 12 months in postpartum patients with chronic hypertension or a hypertension disorder of pregnancy with persistent hypertension at six weeks postpartum.

Increase lifestyle modification behaviors and health outcomes relating to nutrition and physical activity and cardiovascular disease prevention in postpartum patients with chronic hypertension or a hypertension disorder of pregnancy with persistent hypertension at six weeks postpartum.

Congratulations, Dr. Hoppe!

**originally published December 2022