Silhoette of generic photo of pregnant woman smoking. Picture: Jeff Darmanin Source: The Daily Telegraph
BABIES born to overweight mums may have an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes later in life.
Melbourne research has revealed that these babies already have a thickening in their main artery at birth.
The study by Dr Michael Skilton, who conducted the research at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, indicates that regardless of the baby's birth weight, the child may already be at risk of suffering from heart disease.
A total of 23 pregnant women aged 27 to 44 from the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne were recruited for the study.
Within a week of them giving birth, ultrasound scans examined their babies' abdominal aorta-- the main blood vessel that emerges from the heart.
The scans found the difference in thickness of the aortic wall between newborns of overweight and obese mothers and those of healthy mothers was 0.06mm on average.
The thickening was irrespective of the babies' birth weights.
Dr Skilton said the researchers knew that children who had overweight mothers were more likely to become overweight themselves as they aged, which increased their risk of developing heart disease.
"Our results indicate that irrespective of whether or not they go on to develop obesity, they may also be at an increased risk of cardiovascular health problems," he said.
But Dr Skilton, from the University of Sydney, said the research, which was published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, did not show that these babies would definitely go on to have heart attacks or strokes.
"There is a long period, five or six decades, where they can do all the right things and try to improve their heart health, like exercising and eating right, which will give them the best chance of not having a heart attack," he said.
He said if these results were backed up by larger studies, they could be used as a way to identify at-risk children who could be targeted by prevention strategies. He is now doing a bigger study to see if the results are replicated.
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