Mothers of infants with congenital heart defects have an increased risk of hospitalization for cardiovascular causes later in life, indicating that congenital heart defects in offspring might signal a familial predisposition to cardiovascular disease (CVD). This finding comes from a study in >1 million women who had delivered babies in 1989–2013 in Quebec, Canada, including 1,516 women with critical and 14,884 with noncritical heart defects in the offspring. In adjusted models, the risk of hospitalization for any cardiovascular cause was higher in women whose infants had critical heart defects (HR 1.43, 95% CI 1.13–1.82) or noncritical heart defects (HR 1.24, 95% CI 1.15–1.34) compared with mothers of infants with no heart defects. Having offspring with congenital heart defects was also associated with a greater risk of hospitalization for specific cardiovascular causes, such as myocardial infarction and heart failure. “More study is needed to determine if women whose infants [have] heart defects could benefit from targeted primary prevention initiatives,” conclude the investigators.
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Auger, N. et al. Long-term risk of cardiovascular disease in women who have had infants with heart defects. Circulation. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.030277 (2018)
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Fernández-Ruiz, I. Baby’s heart defects can signal mother’s CVD risk. Nat Rev Cardiol 15, 318 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-018-0015-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-018-0015-y