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Does hypertensive disorder of pregnancy predict offspring blood pressure at 21 years? Evidence from a birth cohort study

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 26, pages 288–294 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

Although few studies found that the offspring of women who experienced preeclampsia have higher blood pressure (BP) at childhood and adolescence, no study has observed whether this association exists for adult offspring. To examine whether maternal hypertensive disorder of pregnancy (HDP) predicts adult offspring BP. We followed a sub-sample of 2608 mother–offspring pairs for 21 years from an original cohort of 7223 singleton infants whose mothers gave birth in Brisbane, Australia between 1981 and 1983. HDP was defined as diastolic BP (DBP) over 90 mm Hg on at least two occasions beyond 20 weeks gestation associated with proteinuria and/or excessive fluid retention. Adult offspring's systolic BP (SBP) and DBP were measured at 21 years. Multivariable regressions were used to examine the independent associations of HDP with offspring BP. Unadjusted regression analysis showed that offspring of women who experienced HDP have 3.46 mm Hg greater SBP and 3.02 mm Hg greater DBP at 21 years. This association remained consistent after adjusting for potential confounding and mediating factors including offspring gender, age, percentile birth weight for gestation, placenta weight and body mass index (BMI) at 21 year, maternal age, education, racial origin, and smoking during pregnancy and their pre-pregnancy BMI. Findings of this study suggest that maternal HDP predicts adult offspring BP.

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Acknowledgements

The study commenced in late 1978 and recruitment of the sample started in January 1981. Effectively, a consecutive sample of 8556 women were approached at 18 weeks gestation (on average) to participate in a longitudinal study. Drs John Morrison, Doug Keeping and Alan Chang were obstetricians who initiated the study with Dr Jake Najman and Professor John Western who were sociologists and also principal investigators in the initial grant application. Dr Gail Williams joined the study shortly thereafter (1983). Dr Michael O’Callaghan and Dr Bill Bor joined the study team in 1985. Professors Najman and Williams and Drs O’Callaghan and Bor continue to be principal investigators of the study. We thank the MUSP Team, MUSP participants, the Mater Misericordiae Hospital and the Schools of Social Science, Population Health, and Medicine at the University of Queensland for their support; and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Queensland Health, the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q), the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) and National Heart Foundation for funding this project. AAM is funded by the NHMRC Career Development Awards in Population Health (ID 519756). MK is funded by the University of Queensland Foundation Research. For the work in this paper AAM has a grant from the National Heart Foundation of Australia (ID G07B3135). The core MUSP study was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia. The views expressed in this study are those of the authors and not necessarily any funding body. The authors had full access to all data and no funding bodies influenced the analysis or interpretation of results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    A A Mamun, M K Kinarivala, G Williams & J Najman

  2. Mater Children's Hospital, and University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    M O'Callaghan

  3. Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    L Callaway

  4. School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    L Callaway

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  1. A A Mamun
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  4. G Williams
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  6. L Callaway
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Correspondence to A A Mamun.

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Mamun, A., Kinarivala, M., O'Callaghan, M. et al. Does hypertensive disorder of pregnancy predict offspring blood pressure at 21 years? Evidence from a birth cohort study. J Hum Hypertens 26, 288–294 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2011.35

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