Effect of preeclampsia on blood pressure in newborn very low birth weight infants

Objective. To test the hypothesis that very low birth infants born to mothers with preeclampsia have higher blood pressure over the first week of life than infants whose mothers did not have preeclampsia. Method. Infants born at < 1,350 g who survived at least one week were stratified by gestational age (≤28 weeks and ≥29 completed weeks) and grouped by the presence or absence of preeclampsia. Highest and lowest systolic and mean and diastolic blood pressures were recorded for each of the first seven days of life. Serial blood pressures were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. The presence of hypertension (defined as ≥ 3 days with the highest systolic blood pressure > 90th percentile for gestational age stratum and day-specific range) was analyzed by binary logistic regression. Results. Infants ≥ 29 weeks gestational age born to mothers with preeclampsia had higher blood pressures than did controls. Infants ≤ 28 weeks gestational age born to preeclamptic and nonpreeclamptic mothers had similar blood pressures. In the combined cohort, hypertension was not more prevalent among infants born to women with preeclampsia. Conclusions. Preeclampsia is associated with higher blood pressure in very low birth weight neonates who are ≥ 29 weeks gestation. The long-term significance of this finding is not known.