The role of maternal pre-existing cardiovascular disease for long-term health in offspring

The population of pregnant women with a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is expanding globally, with far-reaching implications for maternal and offspring health.

This project will generate new knowledge on the role of pre-existing maternal CVD for offspring’s health in the early decades of their life.

The main aims are to determine i) if pre-existing maternal CVD is associated with offspring’s developmental and cardiovascular health outcomes; ii) if the associations are primarily driven by the intrauterine or genetic pathway; and iii) how the associations are mediated by specific maternal and fetal health complications.

We will conduct cohort studies using advanced statistical methods and paternal CVD as negative-control exposure to strengthen causal inference.

We will use comprehensive data on 4 million children born in Sweden and British Columbia, Canada between 1992 and 2021, with up to 30-years of follow-up.

The project is part of an ongoing collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and University of British Columbia, and is anticipated to be the largest epidemiological study ever conducted on the impact of maternal CVD on offspring health.

This will contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms through which pre-existent maternal CVD may influence offspring health as they grow up.

In the context of rising prevalence of maternal CVD worldwide, the new knowledge will be of substantial societal and clinical relevance for designing strategies for prevention.