Did you know getting temporary abnormalities during pregnancy can have long-lasting consequences in the long run? A study published in the American Academy of Neurology gives us a perfect example to solidify this hypothesis.
Pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure during pregnancy, is a common condition during gestation in pregnant women. It has been observed that having pre-eclampsia and gestational hypertension can affect neurological functions like memory and other cognitive skills in women years after pregnancy.
Hypertension and Neurological Functioning
The study published on December 30, 2020, in the online issue of Neurology® compared two subjects: Pregnant women with hypertension and pregnant women without hypertension. It showed women with gestational hypertension were more likely to have lower cognitive skills and memory tests than women without the condition.
The cohort study included 596 women in which 115 women had elevated blood pressure levels, and 481 women didn’t show any sign of the condition during their pregnancy. Out of the former group, 70% had gestational hypertension (elevated blood pressure after the 20th week of gestation), the other 30% had pre-eclampsia (elevated blood pressure and high protein levels in urine.)
One might consider these conditions to have temporary effects on the mother’s health, but researchers found their effects showing years later to their surprise. When these women were tested for their cognitive skills 15 years later after the pregnancy, the researchers found the considerably lower performance of these women.
The Tests and the Results
The neurological functioning performance of these women was evaluated in various cognitive domains:
- Verbal memory
- Motor function
- Processing speed
- Visuospatial ability
- Executive function
The immediate recall test results showed women in the control group (non-hypertensive in pregnancy) to have an average score of 28 out of 45. The average dropped to 25 in pregnant ladies in the experimental group (hypertensive in pregnancy.) To make the study more effective, the testing team adjusted for other possible discriminatory factors like education level, ethnicity, and BMI. Performance on delayed recall tasks was also tested to measure the overall neurological functioning in terms of cognition.
However, scientists couldn’t find a difference in the two test groups’ performance when it came to verbal fluency, motor skills, visual-spatial ability, and processing speed. Also, the study wasn’t enough to determine the real cause of the association. A limiting factor was also that these women weren’t tested for their cognitive abilities before pregnancy. Therefore the researchers didn’t have a base point to compare.
The Bottom Line
With the research team’s efforts involved in studying the effects of hypertension on neurological function in pregnant women, we can conclude that there lies a considerable association. A lot of women might think of it as a temporary condition but don’t realize its long-lasting effects.
For now, we are pretty sure pre-eclampsia and gestational hypertension are among the risk factors of cognitive impairment in women. However, further studies are required to determine the role treatment of these conditions plays in preventing neurological problems in women with such a history.
References
http://neuron.mefst.hr/docs/CMJ/issues/2005/46/5/16158464.pdf
https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2020/12/30/WNL.0000000000011363