Effect of preeclampsia on blood pressure in newborn very low birth weight infants.
OBJECTIVE
To test the hypothesis that very low birth infants born to mothers with preeclampsia have higher blood pressure over the first week of life than infants whose mothers did not have preeclampsia.


METHODS
Infants born at<1,350 g who survived at least one week were stratified by gestational age ( <or= 28 weeks and >or= 29 completed weeks) and grouped by the presence or absence of preeclampsia. Highest and lowest systolic and mean and diastolic blood pressures were recorded for each of the first seven days of life. Serial blood pressures were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA: The presence of hypertension (defined as >or= 3 days with the highest systolic blood pressure>90th percentile for gestational age stratum and day-specific range) was analyzed by binary logistic regression.


RESULTS
Infants >or= 29 weeks gestational age born to mothers with preeclampsia had higher blood pressures than did controls. Infants <or= 28 weeks gestational age born to preeclamptic and non-preeclamptic mothers had similar blood pressures. In the combined cohort, hypertension was not more prevalent among infants born to women with preeclampsia.


CONCLUSIONS
Preeclampsia is associated with higher blood pressure in very low birth weight neonates who are >or= 29 weeks gestation. The long-term significance of this finding is not known.
Swarup
Jyothi
J
Department of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
Balkundi
Dhruv
D
Sobchak Brozanski
Beverly
B
Roberts
James Michael
JM
Yanowitz
Toby Debra
TD
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000886:Anthropometry; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000209:etiology*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D019102:Infant, Very Low Birth Weight; D016015:Logistic Models; D011225:Pre-Eclampsia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011249:Pregnancy Complications, Cardiovascular / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome