Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:31:09.955Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Birth weights smaller or larger than the placenta predict BMI and blood pressure at age 7 years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2010

D. P. Misra ,
C. M. Salafia ,
A. K. Charles  and
R. K. Miller
D. P. Misra
Affiliation:
Division of Population Health Sciences, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
C. M. Salafia*
Affiliation:
Placental Analytics, LLC, Larchmont, NY, USA Institute for Basic Research, Staten Island, NY, USA
A. K. Charles
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology, Princess Margaret Hospital, Perth WA, Australia
R. K. Miller
Affiliation:
Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Environmental Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Rochester, Rochester NY, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Dr C. M. Salafia, 93, Colonial Ave, Larchmont, New York, USA. (Email [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We hypothesized that the altered placental proportions that influence birth weight affect childhood body proportions, and that these effects would be independent of birth weight. We also hypothesized that altered placental proportions might affect the fetal cardiovascular system, and may be reflected in variation in childhood blood pressure. By using linear regression with birth weight as the dependent variable, placental variables were entered as predictors. The predicted birth weights based on placental factors were then obtained. The ratio of the actual birth weight to that predicted by placental parameters (observed/expected ratio, OER) was used as the independent variable in analyses of age 7 year body mass index (BMI) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in the 15,902 singleton liveborns delivered between 34 and 43 weeks. The standardized residual birth weight was also used as a variable to examine the effects of birth weight that is not consistent with placental parameters. For each unit increase in the OER, BMI at 7 years increased 1 kg/m2 (P < 0.0001). The OER also had a significant effect on DBP (β = 4.52, P < 0.001) at 7 years of age but only among African-American children. Results for the standardized residual birth weight variable were consistent with the OER. All results were adjusted for gestational age, sex, socioeconomic status, African-American race and maternal pre-pregnancy BMI. Being larger or smaller than predicted by one’s placenta affects childhood body composition and blood pressure. The placental measurements provide insight into pathophysiological mechanisms of the developmental origins of adult disease.

Keywords

placentablood pressureBMIchildhoodrace
Type
Original Article
Information
Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 123 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Flegal, K, Carroll, M, Kuczmarski, R, Johnson, C. Overweight and obesity trends in the United States: prevalence and trends, 1960–1994. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1998; 22, 39–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
2.Hedley, A, Ogden, C, Johnson, C, et al. Prevalence of overweight and obesity among US children, adolescents, and adults, 1999–2002. JAMA. 2004; 291, 2847–2850.Google Scholar
3.Ogden, C, Fryar, C, Carroll, M, Flegal, K. Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index, United States, 1960–2002. 2004. National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville: Maryland.Google ScholarPubMed
4.Chen, X, Wang, Y. Tracking of blood pressure from childhood to adulthood: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis. Circulation. 2008; 117, 3171–3180.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Barker, DJ, Bull, AR, Osmond, C, Simmonds, SJ. Fetal and placental size and risk of hypertension in adult life. BMJ. 1990; 301, 259–262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6.Barker, DJ, Godfrey, KM, Osmond, C, Bull, A. The relation of fetal length, ponderal index and head circumference to blood pressure and the risk of hypertension in adult life. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 1992; 6, 35–44.Google Scholar
7.O’Sullivan, MJ, Kearney, PJ, Crowley, MJ. The influence of some perinatal variables on neonatal blood pressure. Acta Paediatr. 1996; 85, 849–853.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
8.Hemachandra, AH, Klebanoff, MA, Duggan, AK, Hardy, JB, Furth, SL. The association between intrauterine growth restriction in the full-term infant and high blood pressure at age 7 years: results from the Collaborative Perinatal Project. Int J Epidemiol. 2006; 35, 871–877.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
9.Thame, M, Osmond, C, Wilks, RJ, et al. Blood pressure is related to placental volume and birth weight. Hypertension. 2000; 35, 662–667.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10.Burns, TL, Letuchy, EM, Paulos, R, Witt, J. Childhood predictors of the metabolic syndrome in middle-aged adults: the Muscatine study. J Pediatr. 2009; 155, S5.e17–S5.e26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
11.Risnes, KR, Romundstad, PR, Nilsen, TIL, Eskild, A, Vatten, LJ. Placental weight relative to birth weight and long-term cardiovascular mortality: findings from a cohort of 31,307 men and women. Am J Epidemiol. 2009; 170, 622–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12.Salafia, CM, Zhang, J, Miller, RK, et al. Placental growth patterns affect birth weight for given placental weight. Birth Defects Res Part A Clin Mol Teratol. 2007; 79, 281–288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
13.Salafia, CM, Zhang, J, Charles, AK, et al. Placental characteristics and birthweight. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2008; 22, 229–239.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
14.Barker, DJ, Osmond, C. Infant mortality, childhood nutrition, and ischaemic heart disease in England and Wales. Lancet. 1986; 1, 1077–1081.Google Scholar
15.Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, et al. Catch-up growth in childhood and death from coronary heart disease: longitudinal study. BMJ. 1999; 318, 427–431.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
16.Painter, RC, de Rooij, SR, Bossuyt, PM, et al. Blood pressure response to psychological stressors in adults after prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine. J Hypertens. 2006; 24, 1771–1778.Google Scholar
17.Painter, RC, de Rooij, SR, Bossuyt, PM, et al. Early onset of coronary artery disease after prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006; 84, 322–327; quiz 466–467.Google Scholar
18.Roseboom, TJ, van der Meulen, JH, Osmond, C, et al. Coronary heart disease after prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine, 1944–45. Heart. 2000; 84, 595–598.Google Scholar
19.Lumey, LH, Stein, AD. Offspring birth weights after maternal intrauterine undernutrition: a comparison within sibships. Am J Epidemiol. 1997; 146, 810–819.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
20.Eriksson, JG, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, Jaddoe, VWV, Osmond, C, Barker, DJP. Effects of size at birth and childhood growth on the insulin resistance syndrome in elderly individuals. Diabetologia. 2002; 45, 342–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21.Godfrey, K, Robinson, S, Barker, DJ, Osmond, C, Cox, V. Maternal nutrition in early and late pregnancy in relation to placental and fetal growth. BMJ. 1996; 312, 410–414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22.Stein, Z, Susser, M. The Dutch famine, 1944–1945, and the reproductive process. I. Effects or six indices at birth. Pediatr Res. 1975; 9, 70–76.Google ScholarPubMed
23.Godfrey, KM, Redman, CW, Barker, DJ, Osmond, C. The effect of maternal anaemia and iron deficiency on the ratio of fetal weight to placental weight. Br J Obstet Gynaecol. 1991; 98, 886–891.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
24.McMillen, IC, MacLaughlin, SM, Muhlhausler, BS, Gentili, S, Duffield, JL, Morrison, JL. Developmental origins of adult health and disease: the role of periconceptional and foetal nutrition. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2008; 102, 82–89.Google Scholar
25.Terry, MB, Wei, Y, Esserman, D. Maternal, birth, and early-life influences on adult body size in women. Am J Epidemiol. 2007; 166, 5–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
26.Campbell, DM, Hall, MH, Barker, DJ, Cross, J, Shiell, AW, Godfrey, KM. Diet in pregnancy and the offspring’s blood pressure 40 years later. Br J Obstet Gynaecol. 1996; 103, 273–280.Google Scholar
27.Eriksson, J, Forsen, T, Tuomilehto, J, Osmond, C, Barker, D. Fetal and childhood growth and hypertension in adult life. Hypertension. 2000; 36, 790–794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
28.Whincup, P, Cook, D, Papacosta, O, Walker, M. Birth weight and blood pressure: cross sectional and longitudinal relations in childhood. BMJ. 1995; 311, 773–776.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
29.Salafia, CM, Misra, DP, Yampolsky, M, Charles, AK, Miller, RK. Allometric metabolic scaling and fetal and placental weight. Placenta. 2009; 30, 355–360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
30.Misra, D, Salafia, CM, Miles, J. Non-Linear and gender-specific relationships among placental growth measures and the fetoplacental weight ratio. Placenta. 30(12), 1052–1057.Google Scholar
31.Salafia, CM, Maas, E, Thorp, JM, et al. Measures of placental growth in relation to birth weight and gestational age. Am J Epidemiol. 2005; 162, 991–998.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
32.Benirschke, K, Kaufmann, P. Placental shape aberrations. In The Pathology of the Human Placenta (ed. Benirschke K), 4th edn, 2000; pp. 401–404. Springer-Verlag, New York.Google Scholar
33.Boyd, J, Hamilton, W. General description of specimens: placentae in the fifth month (graph 7). In The Human Placenta, 1970; pp. 98–99. W Heffer and Sons, Ltd, Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
34.Leon, DA. Biological theories, evidence, and epidemiology. Int J Epidemiol. 2004; 33, 1167–1171.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
35.Naeye, R. Disorders of the Placenta, Fetus and Neonate: Diagnosis and Clinical Significance, 1992. Mosby Book Press, St. Louis: MO.Google Scholar
36.Salafia, CM, Maas, E. The twin placenta: framework for gross analysis in fetal origins of adult disease initiatives. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2005; 19((Suppl 1)), 23–31.Google Scholar
37.Godfrey, KM. The role of the placenta in fetal programming-a review. Placenta. 2002; 23((Suppl A)), S20–S27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed