A recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism has shown that high blood pressure among pregnant women is associated with an increased risk of overweight and obesity for their children. This risk has even been observed in women without hypertension, but who have their blood pressure at the high limit of the normal range.
Although other factors associated with childhood obesity have already been described, such as parental obesity, birth weight, breastfeeding vs formula feeding and rapid weight gain during early childhood; it had not previously been proved that the increase in blood pressure in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy is also related to increased childhood obesity.
This study included a total of 88,406 mother-child pairs. Different factors were associated with greater overweight and obesity: younger age, higher BMI, earlier age of menarche, higher education levels, first pregnancy and caesarean delivery.
Regarding maternal hypertension (≥ 140/90 mm Hg) in the first trimester it was not related to overweight and childhood obesity, but it was relayed with hypertension in the second and third trimesters. Moreover, within normotensive women, the increase in blood pressure both systolic and diastolic from the first to the third trimester, it was associated with an increase in overweight and childhood obesity.
Following this study, we can conclude that the control of blood pressure up from the second trimester of pregnancy could be important; not only to anticipate future complications such as preeclampsia, but also as a way to prevent childhood obesity, among other previously described factors.
