Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2025
Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound 30/45MHZ System
Published on: May 5, 2018
Multi-Organ Phenotypes of Offspring Born Following Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy: A Systematic Review
Prenali Dwisthi Sattwika1,2,3, Art Schuermans1,4, Hannah Rebecca Cutler1
1Cardiovascular Clinical Research Facility, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine University of Oxford Oxford UK.
Insights
Maternal hypertensive pregnancies may affect offspring's multi-organ development, with observed changes in the heart and blood vessels across various life stages. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and understand long-term impacts.
Area of Science:
- Perinatal Medicine
- Developmental Biology
- Cardiovascular Physiology
Background:
- Hypertensive pregnancies increase offspring's risk for later-life cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
- Limited understanding exists regarding pre-symptomatic multi-organ impacts on offspring from hypertensive pregnancies.
Conclusions:
- Inconsistent evidence exists regarding multi-organ structural and functional differences in offspring exposed to hypertensive pregnancies.
- Well-designed prospective studies are recommended to strengthen the evidence base.
Background:
Hypertensive pregnancies are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and neurological diseases in the offspring during later life. However, less is known about the potential impact on multi-organ phenotypes in offspring before disease symptoms occur. The objective of this systematic review was to determine the associations of fetal exposure to maternal hypertensive pregnancy with multi-organ phenotypes across developmental stages.
Methods And Results:
Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials), WoS, Scopus, CINAHL, and ClinicalTrials.gov were systematically searched until February 2024. Records were independently screened by 2 authors. Studies reporting on the structure or function of the heart, blood vessels, brain, liver, and kidneys in offspring of hypertensive pregnancies compared with a normotensive control population were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Extracted data were presented using harvest plots. Seventy-three studies including 7091 offspring of hypertensive pregnancies and 42 164 controls were identified that met the inclusion criteria. Thirty-two studies were investigations in fetuses, 24 in neonates and infants, 12 in children, 2 in adolescents, and 3 in adults. Offspring of hypertensive pregnancies had structural and functional changes in the heart compared with controls in some studies across developmental stages. Offspring of hypertensive pregnancies also had smaller occipital and parietal vessels, higher aortic intima-media thickness, and lower retinal arteriolar-to-venular ratio. Some conflicting evidence existed for other phenotypical alterations.
Conclusions:
There is still inconsistent evidence of multi-organ structural and functional differences in offspring of hypertensive pregnancies. The evidence base could therefore be further strengthened through well-designed and conducted prospective studies.
Registration Information:
www.crd.york.ac.uk. Unique Identifier: CRD42023387550.
Related Concept Videos
01:07Teratogenicity
01:30Hypertension III: Clinical Manifestations and Diagnostic Studies
01:29Cardiomyopathy III: Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
01:33Hormonal Regulation
01:18Hypertension and Regulation of Blood Pressure
01:29Hypertension II: Pathophysiology