Association of Women's Birth Weight with Their Blood Pressure during Pregnancy and with the Body Size of Their Babies

Abstract

The women's own intrauterine environment may influence their own pregnancy and their babies. The aim of our study was to investigate how a woman's birth weight affects the course of her pregnancy later in life as well as the body size of her babies; this study was based on the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) concept. We collected Maternal and Child Health handbooks from 414 women and their biological mothers. They were classified into 3 categories based on the Fetal growth curve of Japan: light-for-date (LFD), which means birth weight is less than the −1.5SD; appropriate-for-date (AFD), which means it lies between the −1.5SD and +1.5SD; and heavy-for-date (HFD), which means it is in the +1.5SD, or higher. In the first trimester, systolic blood pressures (SBPs) were 117.6 (14.4 mmHg), 111.6 (12.4 mmHg), and 105.0 (11.6 mmHg), and diastolic blood pressures (DBP) were 71.0 (8.5 mmHg), 65.7 (9.4 mmHg), and 62.1 (8.7 mmHg) in women born LFD, AFD, and HFD, respectively (SBP: p for trend = 0.018, DBP: p for trend = 0.027). In the second and third trimesters, both SBP and DBP were higher for women born LFD than for those of the other 2 groups. Birth weights of the babies of women born LFD, AFD, and HFD were 2,791.1 (483.0 g), 3,043.4 (361.0 g), and 3,248.0 (431.5 g), respectively (p for trend < 0.01). Our findings support the DOHaD concept and suggest that intrauterine environment in fetal life may be passed down from generation to generation.

The Mother and Child Health Handbook in Japan as a Health Promotion Tool

“…Twenty-eight papers were obtained: 3 review articles, 4 - 6 17 original articles, 7 - 23 2 brief reports, 24 , 25 2 letters, 26 , 27 1 research note, 28 and 3 proceedings 29 - 31 (see Table 1 ). Additionally, all the articles were in English, and all the proceedings were from an international conference.…”

“… 8 Future studies can evaluate the association between using 2 generations of birth weight recorded by the MCHH. 10 Thus, data from the MCHH may be used for assessing linkage similarities between generations.…”

Learning Disability in 10- to 16-Year-Old Adolescents with Very Low Birth Weight in Japan

“…Recent epidemiological studies and animal experiments have shown that nutritional disorders and environmental factors from the fetal period to infancy lead to not only morphological defects such as physical malformations, but also the occurrence of lifestyle-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular events later in life (de Boo and Harding 2006;Rice et al 2006;Tanabe et al 2011). According to this evidence, the concept of developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) has been defined as the process through which the environment encountered before birth, or in infancy, shapes the long-term control of tissue physiology and homeostasis (Gluckman and Hanson 2004;Gluckman et al 2005).…”