Maternal prenatal anxiety and depression and trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factors across childhood and adolescence: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

Objectives: Quantifying long-term offspring cardiometabolic health risks associated with maternal prenatal anxiety and depression can guide cardiometabolic risk prevention. This study examines associations between maternal prenatal anxiety and depression, and offspring cardiometabolic risk from birth to 18 years.

Design: This study uses data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort.

Participants: Participants were 526-8606 mother-offspring pairs from the ALSPAC cohort.

Setting: British birth cohort set, Bristol, UK.

Primary and secondary outcomes: Exposures were anxiety (Crown-Crisp Inventory score) and depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score) measured at 18 and 32 weeks gestation. Outcomes were trajectories of offspring body mass index; fat mass; lean mass; pulse rate; glucose, diastolic and systolic blood pressure (SBP); triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and insulin from birth/early childhood to 18 years. Exposures were analysed categorically using clinically relevant, cut-offs and continuously to examine associations across the distribution of prenatal anxiety and depression.

Results: We found no strong evidence of associations between maternal anxiety and depression and offspring trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factors. Depression at 18 weeks was associated with higher SBP at age 18 (1.62 mm Hg (95% CI 0.17 to 3.07). Anxiety at 18 weeks was also associated with higher diastolic blood pressure at 7 years in unadjusted analyses (0.70 mm Hg (95% CI 0.02 to 1.38)); this difference persisted at age 18 years (difference at 18 years; 0.89 mm Hg (95% CI 0.05 to 1.73). No associations were observed for body mass index; fat mass; lean mass; pulse rate; glucose; triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and insulin.

Conclusions: This is the first examination of maternal prenatal anxiety and depression and trajectories of offspring cardiometabolic risk. Our findings suggest that prevention of maternal prenatal anxiety and depression may have limited impact on offspring cardiometabolic health across the first two decades of life.

Keywords: anxiety disorders; cardiac epidemiology; depression & mood disorders; epidemiology; prenatal diagnosis.