Hot, Humid Days During Pregnancy Might Affect a Child's Health
By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Jan. 12, 2024 -- Hot or humid days during pregnancy could influence the future heart health of your unborn child, a new study finds.
The children of expecting moms exposed to high humidity tended to have a steeper increase in blood pressure through ages 3 to 10, researchers reported Jan. 8 in the journal JACC: Advances.
On the other hand, exposure to higher temperatures in the womb was associated with a slower increase in blood pressure.
Increases in blood pressure are normal as children age, but these weather-related factors appeared to alter the rate of increase, the researchers said.
“Children with higher blood pressure are more likely to have higher blood pressure as adults, which can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke as well as kidney disease and vascular dementia,” said lead researcher Dr. Ana Gonçalves Soares, a research fellow in epidemiology with the University of Bristol Medical School in the U.K.
“The findings suggest that humidity and temperature during pregnancy could change the child’s blood pressure,” Soares said.
For the study, researchers took repeated blood pressure measurements of more than 7,000 participants ages 3 to 24, all of whom were enrolled in a long-term study of children born in the 1990s.
Similar measurements also were repeated in more than 9,000 participants in Finland, France and the Netherlands.
The research team explored 43 different factors that could influence the health of unborn children, including noise, air pollution, traffic, weather, natural spaces and diet.
They found that that higher humidity was associated with a faster increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure during childhood.
At the same time, high temperatures were associated with a slower increase in systolic blood pressure, results show.
The U.K. kids also experienced a faster increase in diastolic blood pressure during childhood if they were exposed to high levels of air pollution in the womb. However, air pollution exposure also produced a slower increase in blood pressure during their teen years.
The researchers found little evidence of other environmental exposures altering kids’ blood pressure as they grew.
“Further work is needed to be carried out to understand how weather-related conditions during pregnancy can affect the child’s blood pressure, to inform strategies to prevent cardiovascular disease in later adulthood related to prenatal environmental exposure,” Soares concluded.
Sources
- University of Bristol, news release, Jan. 10, 2024
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Posted January 2024
Read this next
Plant-Based Diets Lower Risk of Heart Trouble, Cancer and Death
THURSDAY, May 16, 2024 -- Following a vegetarian or vegan diet might just buy you a longer, healthier life, a new review finds. Staying away from meat was tied to a reduced risk...
Summer of 2023 Was Hottest in 2,000 Years
TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- High temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere last summer were scorching and frequent enough to make it the hottest summer in two millennia, new...
San Francisco Set to Ban 'Forever Chemicals' in Firefighter Gear
TUESDAY, May 14, 2024 -- San Francisco is on the verge of passing a ban on "forever chemicals" in the protective clothing firefighters wear while battling blazes. City lawmakers...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.