Paternal and maternal components of the predisposition to preeclampsia

There is an inherited maternal predisposition to preeclampsia. Whether there is a paternal component, however, is not known.

We used records of the Utah Population Database to identify 298 men and 237 women born in Utah between 1947 and 1957 whose mothers had had preeclampsia during their pregnancy. For each man and woman in the study group, we identified two matched, unrelated control subjects who were not the products of pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia. We then identified 947 children of the 298 male study subjects and 830 children of the 237 female study subjects who had been born between 1970 and 1992. These children were matched to offspring of the control subjects (1950 offspring of the male control group and 1658 offspring of the female control group). Factors associated with preeclampsia were identified, and odds ratios were calculated with the use of stepwise logistic-regression analysis.

In the group whose mothers had had preeclampsia (the male study group), 2.7 percent of the offspring (26 of 947) were born of pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia, as compared with 1.3 percent of the offspring (26 of 1973) in the male control group. In the female study group, 4.7 percent of the pregnancies (39 of 830) were complicated by preeclampsia, as compared with 1.9 percent (32 of 1658) in the female control group. After adjustment for the offspring's year of birth, maternal parity, and the offspring's gestational age at delivery, the odds ratio for an adult whose mother had had preeclampsia having a child who was the product of a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia was 2.1 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.0 to 4.3; P=0.04) in the male study group and 3.3 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.5 to 7.5; P=0.004) in the female study group.

Both men and women who were the product of a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia were significantly more likely than control men and women to have a child who was the product of a pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia.