Health of children born to mothers who had preeclampsia: a population-based cohort study
Received 9 November 2008; received in revised form 12 April 2009; accepted 24 June 2009.
Objective
We assessed whether preeclampsia correlates with the long-term postnatal health of the offspring.
Study Design
We conducted a population-based cohort study of 1,618,481 singletons born in Denmark (1978-2004) with up to 27 years of follow-up. We used Cox regression to estimate the associations between preeclampsia and long-term health outcomes of the offspring.
Results
Children born at term exposed to preeclampsia had an increased risk of a variety of diseases, such as endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases (incidence rate ratio, 1.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.5–1.7), and diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs (incidence rate ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.3–1.8). Children born preterm exposed to preeclampsia had a similar pattern of hospitalizations compared with the children born preterm unexposed to preeclampsia, although they had a decreased risk of cerebral palsy (incidence rate ratio, 0.7; 95% confidence interval, 0.6–0.9).
Conclusion
Preeclampsia was associated with an increased risk of being hospitalized for a number of diseases, especially in the children born at term.
aDepartment of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
bDepartment of General Practice, School of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark
cDepartment of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
dDepartment of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Reprints: Chun S. Wu, MD, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus 8000C, Denmark
Cite this article as: Wu CS, Nohr EA, Bech BH, et al. Health of children born to mothers who had preeclampsia: a population-based cohort study. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2009;201:269.e1-10.
Chun S. Wu was supported by Grants from the Danish Cancer Society (Grant number DP04127) and National Institutes of Health (Grant number 5R01AI071386-6).
ABSTRACT
Health of children born to mothers who had preeclampsia: a population-based cohort study