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Maternal hypertensive diseases negatively affect offspring motor development

Tegan Grace1, Max Bulsara2, Craig Pennell3

  • 1School of Health Sciences, University of Notre Dame Australia, Australia.

Pregnancy Hypertension
|June 25, 2015
PubMed

Insights

Maternal hypertensive diseases, especially preeclampsia, during pregnancy negatively impact offspring motor development. These effects persist into late childhood and adolescence, indicating long-term consequences.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental neuroscience
  • Maternal-fetal medicine
  • Pediatric neurology

Background:

  • Hypertension in pregnancy and preeclampsia are associated with adverse developmental outcomes in offspring.
  • Limited longitudinal research exists on the long-term effects of maternal hypertensive disorders on offspring motor development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if maternal hypertensive diseases during pregnancy are a risk factor for compromised motor development in offspring.
  • To assess motor development at ages 10, 14, and 17 years in relation to maternal pregnancy blood pressure.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort Study (Raine), a longitudinal cohort study.
  • Classified 2868 offspring based on maternal blood pressure: normotension, hypertension, and preeclampsia.
  • Measured offspring motor development using the Neuromuscular Developmental Index (NDI) of the McCarron Assessment of Motor Development (MAND) at ages 10, 14, and 17.
  • Employed linear mixed models for statistical analysis to compare motor outcomes between groups.

Main Results:

  • Offspring exposed to preeclampsia in utero exhibited significantly poorer motor development across all measured ages compared to normotensive groups (p≤0.001).
  • Offspring of mothers with hypertension also showed poorer motor outcomes than those from normotensive pregnancies (p=0.002).

Conclusions:

  • Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, particularly preeclampsia, are associated with lasting deficits in offspring motor development.
  • These findings suggest that preeclampsia may have permanent consequences for motor function in children and adolescents.
Abstract

Keywords:
AdolescenceHypertensionMotor developmentPreeclampsiaRaine Study

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