Heart Rate Variability and Pregnancy Complications: Systematic Review

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is known as a critical regulatory system for pregnancy-induced adaptations. If it fails to function, life-threatening pregnancy complications could occur. Hence, understanding and monitoring the underlying mechanism of action for these complications are necessary.

We aimed to systematically review the literature concerned with the associations between heart rate variability (HRV), as an ANS biomarker, and pregnancy complications.

We performed a comprehensive search in the PubMed, Medline Completion, CINAHL Completion, Web of Science Core Collection Classic, Cochrane Library, and SCOPUS databases in February 2022 with no time span limitation. We included studies concerned with the association between any pregnancy complications and HRV, with or without a control group. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guideline was used for the review of the studies, and Covidence software was used for the study selection process. For data synthesis, we used the guideline by Popay et al.

Finally, 12 studies with 6656 participants were included. Despite the methodological divergency that hindered a comprehensive comparison, our findings suggest that ANS is linked with some common pregnancy complications including fetal growth. However, existing studies do not support an association between ANS and gestational diabetes mellitus. Studies that linked pulmonary and central nervous system disorders with ANS function did not provide enough evidence to draw conclusions.

This review highlights the importance of understanding and monitoring the underlying mechanism of ANS in pregnancy-induced adaptations and the need for further research with robust methodology in this area.