Cardiovascular risk factors before and during pregnancy: Does pregnancy unmask or initiate risk?

Objectives: To understand if pregnancy unmasks previously silent cardiovascular (CV) adverse factors, or initiates lasting injury.Methods: Pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy CV risk factors (blood pressure, fasting lipids, and glucose) from 296 women belonging to studies in the International Childhood Cardiovascular Cohort (i3C) Consortium, a group of studies assessing the relationship between child and adolescent CV risk factors and adult outcomes, were used. Correlation coefficients between the pre- and during pregnancy measures were calculated, and the mean difference between the measures was modeled with adjustment for age, body mass index, race, smoking, and study.Results: Measures were strongly correlated at pre- and during-pregnancy visits (p Conclusions: Pre- and during-pregnancy CV risk factors are moderately well correlated. This may indicate that susceptible women enter pregnancy with higher risk rather than pregnancy inducing new vascular or metabolic effects.</p