Pregnancy Complications may Lead to Later Heart Problem in Adult Children

Pregnancy complications like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may lead to heart trouble in adult children, reveals a new study.

Children born to mothers with pregnancy complications like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are more likely to develop heart trouble later in life, reports a new study.

A new study in Cardiovascular Research finds that female offspring of females with polycystic ovary syndrome have an increased risk for developing cardiac dysfunction.

Pregnancy and Complications
In-depth guide for expecting mothers to overcome health complications related to early or late pregnancy. Anemia, urinary infection, diabetes, premature labor to name a few.

‘Expecting moms facing pregnancy complications like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) can put their unborn child at a higher risk for developing heart trouble later in life.’
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Polycystic ovary syndrome is the most common reproductive disorder, affecting one in 10 women of childbearing age. Women with disorder may have infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods or excess male hormone (androgen) levels, making pregnancy more difficult. The disorder is also associated with developing type 2 diabetes, depression, high blood pressure, and uterine cancer.

Although the disorder has a strong genetic component, considerable evidence suggests that the syndrome may originate by an adverse environment in utero with maternal androgen excess.

The research team here tested the hypothesis that elevated maternal dihydrotestosterone during late pregnancy may cause cardiac dysfunction in adult female offspring.

Top 12 Facts on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
PCOS is a life-altering hormonal disorder with symptoms ranging from emotional instability to infertility due to excessive male hormone production.

The research team conducted three experiments to assess the effects of prenatal exposure to dihydrotestosterone, as well as maternal obesity, in mice. Researchers generated prenatally androgenized female offspring by injecting pregnant dams with dihydrotestosterone during late pregnancy. To generate maternal obesity, twelve-week-old female mice were fed for 10 weeks with a high-fat/high-sucrose diet prior to and during pregnancy. After birth, female offspring were separated from their mothers and assigned to a control diet. The cardiac function was measured with echocardiography in a subset of adult female mice offspring and the heart tissue was thereafter harvested for molecular analysis.

The research team also measured the effects of continuous dihydrotestosterone exposure from pre-puberty to adult age in cardiac function, using a mouse model that resembles features of the human polycystic ovary condition. In this experiment, 4-week-old female mice were implanted subcutaneously with either an implant containing dihydrotestosterone; or an empty, blank implant; or a pellet containing flutamide (an anti-androgen) together with the dihydrotestosterone -containing pellet. Seven weeks after pellet implantation, mice were subject to cardiovascular assessment.

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Test Your Knowledge on Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a very common condition seen in women during their reproductive years. It is associated with irregular periods, excessive facial and body hair (hirsutism), infertility, obesity and other endocrine and metabolic abnormalities.

Throughout the experiments, researchers found that maternal androgen excess as well as continuous androgen exposure from pre-puberty leads to pathological cardiac hypertrophy in adult life. Moreover, they showed that the cardiac dysfunction in the adult prenatally androgenized offspring was linked to an early cardiac reprogramming. Maternal high-fat/high sucrose feeding prior to and during gestation alone did not have an impact on the cardiac profile of the female offspring.

"Our study provides novel insight into the mechanisms that may lead to increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease in women with PCOS and their daughters. We revealed that exposure to male hormones during the critical period of fetal life is a stronger factor than maternal obesity in PCOS, which has a long-lasting impact on the cardiovascular profile of female offspring", says Stener-Victorin.