Pregnant mothers’ high blood pressure linked to this increased risk in children

Gestational hypertension affects some 16 percent of U.S. pregnancies

Pregnant mothers experiencing high blood pressure may have to worry about another potential health risk to their children, researchers warned on Monday.

The condition, also known as gestational hypertension, has previously been linked to premature births and stillbirths that are tied to a decrease in blood flow through the placenta.

Now, researchers at University of Iowa Health Care have found it is also associated with an increased risk for seizure in kids.

"The connection between high blood pressure in pregnant moms and seizures in children from these pregnancies had been postulated before, but never examined on a large scale, and never modeled in an animal,” Dr. Baojian Xue, a senior research scientist in pediatrics at the university, commented on the research.

“With these new mouse models and this new connection between gestational hypertension and seizures, we can now perhaps come up with new childhood anti-seizure therapies," he wrote.

Pregnant mothers who suffer from high blood pressure may need to be concerned about a link to an increased risk for seizure in children. Researchers at University of Iowa Health Care studied the effect in mice and analyzed data from more than 246 million patient records (University of Iowa Health Care)

Xue was the first author of the National Institutes of Health-funded study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

To reach these conclusions, they utilized clinical databases and studies in lab mice, including the records of more than 246 million patients from across the U.S. The study found that children born to mothers with high blood pressure during their pregnancy had significantly higher rates of seizures compared to those with normal blood pressure.

In mice, testing confirmed that exposure to gestational hypertension in the womb increased seizure sensitivity and death due to seizures. Of their subjects, male offspring showed greater vulnerability to the medical condition. They also found that brain inflammation played a “significant role” in the process of disease, saying it may play such a role in human children.

Gestational hypertension impacts nearly 16 percent of American pregnancies. Mothers are also at a higher risk of seizures, stroke, temporary kidney failure, and liver and blood clotting problems, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Most people with high blood pressure will deliver healthy babies when the condition is caught early in pregnancy. However, the more severe the condition is, the more at risk mothers are for serious complications, the clinic notes.

Most people with high blood pressure will deliver healthy babies when the condition is caught early. But, there are more serious consequences when high blood pressure-related complications develop later in the pregnancy (Getty Images/iStock)

That can include preeclampsia, when high blood pressure develops after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Eclampsia occurs when a pregnant woman has seizures due to untreated or under-treated preeclampsia.

But this study – the first large-scale evidence connecting gestational hypertension to heightened seizure risk in offspring – may offer new pathways for further research. The impact of brain inflammation could be targeted to prevent seizures in children exposed to gestational hypertension.

Notably, this research was released the same day as another study from Columbia University that found low levels of arsenic in drinking water were also linked to preterm birth and lower birthweight.

"This study is unique because you have an association drawn from analyses of large clinical databases, but then we go on to prove the association with animal models,” Dr. Vinit Mahajan, professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University and a co-author on the study, explained.

“We were even able to reduce seizures in mice offspring with anti-inflammatory drugs based on what we learned from the model.”