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SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Babies born to older mothers tend to have significantly higher than usual blood pressure, which may affect the working of their hearts and arteries throughout their lives.
Doctors at Harvard Medical School who made the discovery called it unexpected. But they said it is one more indication that the environment in the womb can influence the development of health - both good and bad - long into adulthood.
The researchers found that for every five-year increase in a mother's age, there is a 11/2-point increase in her newborn's blood pressure. The baby of a 40-year-old woman will have systolic blood pressure - the higher of the two numbers - that averages five or six points higher than a 20-year-old's child.
``That's a lot,'' said Dr. Matthew W. Gillman. ``We don't know why this is yet, but one hypothesis is that older mothers have placentas that don't work so well. They have altered hormonal output that may raise the blood pressure of the child.''
Gillman's results were based the first 322 births in his study, which eventually will enroll 6,000 pregnant women. He presented the data in San Antonio at an American Heart Association epidemiology conference, which concluded Saturday.
Doctors do not know yet whether the elevated blood pressure persists through infancy and beyond, and much longer follow-up studies will be necessary to understand its consequences.
The researchers suspect these babies may be prone to elevated blood pressure as they age, which would increase their risk of heart trouble. But the condition could also foreshadow other, more subtle, differences in the development of their circulatory systems.
While the findings may help doctors track broad trends in disease development through life, it is unclear what relevance they will have for individual pregnancies, Gillman said.
``We need not get into blaming mothers for things they do during pregnancy,'' he said. ``It already is a high enough stress period.''
Understanding how life in the womb influences later health has become a hot area of medical research. Much of this study involves the effect of birth weight on the development of obesity, heart trouble, cancer and other ills.
Dr. Luc Djousse and others from Boston University School of Medicine analyzed data on the birth weights of 2,555 adults. Compared with those who were larger, people who weighed less than 51/2 pounds at birth were 21/2 times more likely to develop heart disease and 11/2 times more likely to get diabetes.
Why the small babies are so much more likely to have heart disease is still a mystery, said Djousse. He said it cannot be entirely explained by an increased tendency to develop diabetes or high blood pressure.
In general, studies show that underweight but full-term babies are more likely than usual to grow up with pot bellies, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Oversize babies, on the other hand, may be more apt to become obese or to have breast or prostate cancer.
More than half of all U.S. adults are now considered overweight.
``We should begin to look at childhood as the beginning of this process and perhaps all the way back to prenatal life,'' said Dr. Stephen Daniels of Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati.
On the Net:
American Heart Association: http://www.americanheart.org
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