Recent research suggests that babies born to mothers who undergo significant grief during pregnancy may face an elevated risk of heart failure later in life.
Lead researcher Fen Yang, a PhD student at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, stated, “If future studies support our findings, the implementation of early screening for risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes in children born to mothers who experienced bereavement, as well as the adoption of preventive measures, could significantly contribute to reducing the burden of heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.”
The study, which examined data from over 6.7 million births in Denmark and Sweden between 1973 and 2016, focused on maternal grief as a form of prenatal stress. Among the participants, more than 167,000 had experienced prenatal stress due to bereavement in the year before or during pregnancy.
During the follow-up period, which had a median duration of just over 24 years, more than 4,800 offspring were diagnosed with heart failure. The research revealed that severe forms of maternal loss, particularly the death of a partner or an older child, were associated with a higher risk of heart failure in the children later in life. The loss of other close family members showed a link, particularly when the death was unnatural.
Published on Feb. 21 in the journal JACC: Heart Failure, the findings underscored the potential impact of maternal stress during pregnancy on fetal development and subsequent heart health outcomes. However, Dr. Maya Guglin, chair of the American College of Cardiology’s Heart Failure and Transplantation Council, expressed reservations about the study’s methodology, pointing out that it included children with congenital heart disease, a condition already associated with maternal grief.
Despite the limitations of the study, including its inability to identify milder forms of heart failure and potential confounding factors like genetics and lifestyle choices, Yang stressed the importance of considering severe maternal bereavement as a potential risk factor for future heart failure. He also emphasized the need for further research to explore other stressors that could influence heart failure risk.
In light of these findings, researchers recommended that pregnant women seek support and use coping strategies for their grief to minimize potential long-term impacts on their children’s health. However, they also noted that heart failure remains rare in young people, and expecting mothers should not panic about the likelihood of their children developing the condition.
Heart failure, characterized by the heart’s inability to pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the body’s organs, cannot be cured, but its symptoms can be managed to improve quality and length of life. Despite the challenges posed by maternal grief, which may be unavoidable in some cases, researchers hope that continued investigation into prenatal stressors and their effects on heart health will lead to improved preventive measures and interventions in the future.
