Low Birth Weight Babies More Likely To Have High Blood Pressure As Adults

May 26, 2009 by tanya
Filed under: Baby Health, News, Pregnancy

New research has found that babies who are born underweight are more likely to have high blood pressure problems as adults.

Dr. Gerald Berenson has been part of a team studying the health of around 15,000 people in a small rural town in Louisiana over the last 35 years.

He has found that the average birth weight of black babies is lower than for white babies. He found that the health and financial circumstances of the mother did not make a difference.

Berenson said “They are… lighter by a few hundred grams in the blacks compared to whites,”

“So right off, there is a difference in birth weights, and males tend to have heavier birth weights than do females.”

It has been known that underweight babies may have more health problems during their infancy. Low birth weight is considered to be below 2,500 grams at birth.

The study found that babies which were born with a low birth rate had a higher chance of having high blood pressure when in their 30s and 40s.

“It may be because they begin to get higher blood pressure as people get older. And the effect of the low birth weight may become exaggerated at that point.” Berenson commented.

“We know that smoking, for example, affects the blood vessels in the placenta. We know that alcohol is bad,” Berenson he added.

“General nutrition, particularly in the early trimester, is very critical. That development in the early period of gestation is… is very important. So a baby in utero, early in development, is showing the effects of the environment.”