Pregnancy hypertension and the risk for neuropsychological difficulties across early development: A brief report

Abstract

Despite documented effects on fetal brain development, little is currently known about the relationship between maternal pregnancy hypertension and child neuropsychological outcomes. This brief report examined the association between maternal hypertension during pregnancy and children’s social cognition and executive functioning when children were 18 months, 3 years, and 4.5 years. A community sample of 501 families (23 hypertensive mothers; 478 nonhypertensive) was recruited when children were newborns. Social cognition (including theory of mind [ToM]) and executive functioning (EF) were measured using a battery of age-appropriate standardized and/or observational tasks. Information on pregnancy and prenatal factors were measured via maternal report when children were newborns. After controlling for prenatal and demographic covariates, the presence of hypertension difficulties during pregnancy was associated with all measures of social cognition, ToM, and EF. A secondary analysis comparing the hypertension group (n = 23) to a nonhypertensive matched control group (n = 23) supported the effect of pregnancy hypertension on children’s social-cognitive and EF development. Future studies using obstetrical records are encouraged based on these preliminary findings.

Keywords:

• Pregnancy hypertension
• Intrauterine environment
• Social cognition
• Theory of mind
• Executive functioning

We are grateful to the KFP (Kids, Families, Places), the Hamilton and Toronto Public Health Units, and to Mira Boskovic for project management. The grant “Transactional Processes in Emotional and Behavioural Regulation: Individuals in Context” was awarded to Jennifer M. Jenkins and Michael Boyle from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and covered data collection. We are also grateful to the Connaught Global Challenge Fund for providing financial support to the contributors of this study.