Maternal hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and early childhood cardiometabolic risk factors: The Generation R Study

The objective of this study was to determine the associations between hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and early childhood cardiometabolic risk factors in the offspring. Therefore, 7794 women from the Generation Rotterdam Study were included, an ongoing population-based prospective birth cohort. Women with a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy were classified as such when they were affected by pregnancy induced hypertension, pre-eclampsia or the haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet count (HELLP) syndrome during pregnancy. Early childhood cardiometabolic risk factors were defined as the body mass index at the age of 2, 6, 12, 36 months and 6 years. Additionally, it included systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total fat mass, cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin and clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors at 6 years of age. Sex-specific differences in the associations between hypertensive disorders and early childhood cardiometabolic risk factors were investigated. Maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were inversely associated with childhood body mass index at 12 months (confounder model: -0.15 SD, 95% CI -0.27; -0.03) and childhood triglyceride at 6 years of age (confounder model: -0.28 SD, 95% CI -0.45; -0.10). For the association with triglycerides, this was only present in girls. Maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were not associated with childhood body mass index at 2, 6 and 36 months. No associations were observed between maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, fat mass index and cholesterol levels at 6 years of age. Our findings do not support an independent and consistent association between maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and early childhood cardiometabolic risk factors in their offspring. However, this does not rule out possible longer term effects of maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy on offspring cardiometabolic health.