The American Heart Association’s latest scientific statement, published in the journal Circulation, highlights that the prevention of heart disease begins much earlier than previously thought.
The claim is a summary of the information that links a woman’s heart health—including her physical, environmental, and cognitive experiences as a child and young adult—to the well-being of the offspring she bears.
It also emphasizes the need for greater research and public health strategies to improve women’s heart health throughout their lives.
Sadiya S. Khan, M.D., M.Sc., FAHA, chair of the scientific statement writing group and assistant professor of medicine (cardiology) and preventive medicine (epidemiology) at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, asserted that “the biological processes that contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes begin before a person is pregnant.”
Therefore, prior to pregnancy, it is important to concentrate on maximizing cardiovascular health. According to the facts, cardiovascular health varies among generations. The period just before becoming pregnant is a crucial life stage that has an impact on the health of the potential mother and the unborn child, according to the expert.
Using Life’s Essential 8 which includes a heart-healthy diet, regular exercise, quitting smoking, a healthy weight, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, blood sugar, and sleep habits, researchers discovered that just one in every five Americans aged two and up had ideal cardiovascular health.
Low heart health before pregnancy is linked to a number of pregnancy problems, such as giving birth early, getting gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, preeclampsia, or having a baby who is small for gestational age. The latest research shows that these problems during pregnancy are also linked to a higher risk of heart disease in offspring.
Preterm birth increases heart disease risk by 53% by 43.
When a woman has type 2 diabetes before getting pregnant, there is a 39% increased chance that her kids would have cardiovascular disease by the age of 40.
Even though there is evidence that a person’s health before pregnancy affects the health of their children, there are no large trials with enough people and data to test whether improving overall cardiovascular health before pregnancy will reduce pregnancy complications, cardiovascular death related to pregnancy, or cardiovascular risk for children.
According to Khan, “if a research trial focused on cardiovascular health before pregnancy successfully reduced pregnancy complications and improved the mother’s and child’s cardiovascular health, it could be practice-changing.”
New studies to fill the gap in knowledge on maternal cardiovascular health should be carefully designed to include individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. It is important to understand why persons from different racial and ethnic groups have disproportionately higher rates of cardiovascular disease and pregnancy problems.
According to the statement, research on preventing or treating cardiovascular disease should look at lifestyle modifications including exercise and a heart-healthy diet in pregnant women, as well as treatment plans using drugs that are proven to be safe during pregnancy.
For cardiovascular health to be optimized, psychological health, stress, and resilience must also be taken into account. Interventions for women from historically marginalized groups are crucial, as are studies that take into account the psychological toll of racial discrimination.
Discrimination is one example of a chronic stressor that has been linked to worse cardiovascular health and an increased risk of pregnancy problems. Mindfulness-based and culturally sensitive stress reduction interventions may be a way to deal with the stress caused by these things.
Improving cardiovascular health before pregnancy has the potential to have far-reaching effects on health across the lifespan and across generations, according to Khan.
“However, the responsibility is one that should be embraced by all of us, not placed solely on individual women,” says Khan, adding, the pre-pregnancy period offers a unique window of opportunity to equitably address the increased incidence of adverse pregnancy outcomes, and to interrupt and improve the intergenerational relationship of poor cardiovascular health by focusing on individual-, community- and policy-level solutions.”
Source: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001124
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