Children Exposed To Higher Levels of Vitamin D in the Womb Are At Lower Blood Pressure Risk, Born To Mothers with Preeclampsia

Dec, 2020 - By WMR

According to a new research study initiated by the researchers of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have reported that children who were born to mothers with high blood pressure condition called preeclampsia during pregnancy are at increased risk of having high blood pressure. However, this conditions can be eliminated or reduced, if children are exposed to higher levels of vitamin D in the womb, in spite of mother having preeclampsia during pregnancy. Moreover, researchers informed that the findings are based on the evaluated data on 754 mother-child pairs. Researchers also noted that high blood pressure in childhood can cause hypertension and heart disease in adulthood.

Noel Muelle, study senior author from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, stated, “There is increasing evidence that cardiovascular disease risk is, to a great extent, programmed in the womb, and we now see that it may be vitamin D that alters this programming in a beneficial fashion.”

Researchers further suggested that vitamin D deficiency during maternity results in higher risk of preeclampsia. In the study, researchers considered data of 754 mother-child from a large epidemiological study, which included information on preeclampsia during pregnancy, tests on blood from the umbilical cord at birth, and the children's blood pressure from age 3 to 18.

Moreover, out of all the participants, around 62% of the mothers were Black, and 52% were overweight or obese. Later, after evaluation researchers observed that around 10% of the women had preeclampsia, and their children exhibited higher systolic blood pressure, in comparison to children born to mothers without preeclampsia. In addition, children with highest vitamin D exhibited average blood pressure, in spite of their mothers having preeclampsia during pregnancy.