Longitudinal study of birthweight, blood pressure, and markers of arterial stiffness in children age six among the TIDES cohort

Sara E Long; Shefali Sood; Anish Kanesa-Thasan; Linda G Kahn; Elaine M Urbina; Emily S Barrett; Ruby H Nguyen; Nicole R Bush; Shanna H Swan; Sheela Sathyanarayana; Leonardo Trasande

doi:10.1097/HJH.0000000000003745

Longitudinal study of birthweight, blood pressure, and markers of arterial stiffness in children age six among the TIDES cohort

J Hypertens. 2024 Apr 24. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0000000000003745. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Sara E Long¹, Shefali Sood², Anish Kanesa-Thasan³, Linda G Kahn^{1

4}, Elaine M Urbina⁵, Emily S Barrett⁶, Ruby H Nguyen⁷, Nicole R Bush^{8

9}, Shanna H Swan¹⁰, Sheela Sathyanarayana^{11

12}, Leonardo Trasande^{1

4

13

14}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York.
² Department of Ophthalmology, Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia.
³ Cohen Children's Medical Center, Northwell Health, Queens.
⁴ Department of Population Health, NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York.
⁵ Heart Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and the Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio.
⁶ Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Rutgers School of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute; Piscataway, New Jersey.
⁷ Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
⁸ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
⁹ Department of Pediatrics, UCSF, San Francisco, California.
¹⁰ Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York.
¹¹ Department of Pediatrics, Seattle Children's Research Institute.
¹² Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
¹³ Department of Environmental Medicine, NYU School of Medicine.
¹⁴ NYU Wagner School of Public Service, New York, New York, USA.

PMID: 38690915
DOI: 10.1097/HJH.0000000000003745

Abstract

Objective: Although some studies have observed an association between birthweight and cardiovascular disease in adulthood, fewer have investigated whether birthweight is linked to cardiovascular health in early childhood. This study assesses the association between birthweight and cardiovascular outcomes in children 6 years of age.

Study design: Birthweight, blood pressure (BP), and markers of arterial stiffness in children, including brachial artery distensibility and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), were obtained from 324 participants in The Infant Development and the Environment Study, a prospective multisite pregnancy cohort. Birthweight was converted into sex-specific birthweight-for-gestational-age (bw/ga) z-scores based on the INTERGROWTH-21st standard. Following 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, SBP and DBP were transformed into sex, age, and height-specific z-scores. Associations between birthweight and cardiovascular outcomes were assessed using nested multivariable linear regression models among the overall and sex-stratified samples.

Results: Among the overall sample, bw/ga z-score was positively associated with cfPWV [b = 0.11 m/s, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.01 m/s, 0.21 m/s] in crude and adjusted models. No associations between birthweight and cardiovascular outcomes were detected among the sex-stratified analyses.

Conclusion: Overall, birthweight was not related to cardiovascular outcomes in children 6 years old. However, infants born with a higher birthweight may be at risk for higher cfPWV in childhood. Early intervention in pregnant people at risk of delivering high birthweight infants may be warranted if results are replicated.