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Birth Weight and Maternal Body Size as Determinants of Blood Pressure at Age 17: Results from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study Cohort

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Abstract

Objectives

To investigate the effect of birth weight (BW) and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI (mBMI) on blood pressure (BP) in adolescence.

Methods

A Population-based cohort of 11,729 births in Jerusalem during 1974–1976, with archival data on maternal and birth characteristics was performed. Measurements at age 17 were assessed and linear regression models were used to evaluate the associations of birth characteristics with BP outcomes.

Results

BW was inversely associated with both systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) BP at age 17 (SBP: B = − 0.829, p = 0.002; DBP: B = − 0.397, p = 0.033). The interaction term between BW and weight at age 17 was significant for DBP (p = 0.017) and pulse pressure (p = 0.005). mBMI yielded significant positive associations with BP, independent of BW.

Conclusions for Practice

Our findings indicate that there are at least two distinct pathways linking early life characteristics with subsequent BP: Intrauterine growth, as reflected by BW and other genetic or environmental factors, reflected by mBMI and maternal education, contribute to offspring adolescent BP. These results warrant replication in other birth cohorts and underline the need to explore specific mechanisms that account for these associations.

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Funding

This study was supported by NIH research grant 2R01CA7080197-07.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Braun School of Public Health, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Uri P. Dior, Ora Paltiel, Ronit Calderon-Margalit, Yechiel Friedlander, Iaroslav Youssim, Orly Manor & Hagit Hochner

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hadassah Medical Center and Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, P.O. Box 12000, 91120, Jerusalem, Israel

    Uri P. Dior & Gilad Karavani

  3. Hypertension Unit, Department of Medicine, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Michael Bursztyn

Authors
  1. Uri P. Dior
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  2. Gilad Karavani
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  5. Ronit Calderon-Margalit
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  7. Iaroslav Youssim
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  8. Orly Manor
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  9. Hagit Hochner
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Contributions

UPD: Project development, Data collection, Data analysis, Manuscript writing, Manuscript editing. GK: Data analysis, Manuscript writing, Manuscript editing. MB: Project development, Manuscript editing. OP: Project development, Data analysis, Manuscript editing. RC-M: Project development, Data analysis Manuscript editing. YF: Project development, Data collection, Data analysis, Manuscript editing. IY Data analysis, Manuscript editing. OM Project development, Data analysis, Manuscript writing. HH Project development, Data collection, Data analysis, Manuscript writing, Manuscript editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Uri P. Dior.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the Israeli ministry of health guidelines on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008, and has been approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center (IRB 10-01.04.05).

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Dior, U.P., Karavani, G., Bursztyn, M. et al. Birth Weight and Maternal Body Size as Determinants of Blood Pressure at Age 17: Results from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study Cohort. Matern Child Health J 25, 162–171 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-020-03096-x

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