Association Between Infant Birth Weight and Maternal Cardiovascular Risk Factors in the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study

Purpose Mothers who deliver a low-birth-weight (LBW) infant may themselves be at excess risk for cardiovascular disease. We investigated whether older women who bore LBW infants had higher blood pressure, lipid, glucose, insulin, interleukin 6 (IL-6), and C-reactive protein concentrations, and pulse wave velocity compared to women with normal-weight births. Methods Participants were 446 women with a mean age of 80 years and 47% black. Women reported birth weight and complications for each pregnancy. Analysis was limited to first births not complicated by hypertension or preeclampsia. Results Women who had delivered a first-birth infant weighing less than 2500 g had a lower body mass index (BMI) compared with women with a normal-weight (≥2500 g) infant (26.7 versus 28.4 kg/m2; p = 0.02), but they had a larger abdominal circumference for BMI (97.9 versus 95.5 cm; p = 0.05). They also were marginally more likely to be administered antihypertensive medication (p = 0.06). After adjustment for BMI, race, and age, women with a history of a small infant had elevations in systolic blood pressure (p = 0.05) and greater IL-6 levels (p = 0.02) and were more insulin resistant (p = 0.05) compared with women with a normal-weight infant. Conclusions These findings suggest that a history of LBW delivery identifies women with elevated cardiovascular risk factors.