Hypertensive disorders during pregnancy and cognitive outcomes in children: the ALSPAC study.

Authors

Berihun Dachew, Getinet Ayano, Rosa Alati

Published in

Hypertension in pregnancy. Volume 45. Issue 1. Pages 2725449. Dec 31, 2026. Epub Aug 31, 2026.

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the associations between hypertensive disorders during pregnancy and intelligence quotient (IQ) in children at the ages of 8 and 16 years.
Our study sample comprised participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort, an ongoing population-based longitudinal birth cohort in Bristol, Avon, United Kingdom. Offspring IQ was assessed using a shortened version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) at age 8 and the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) at approximately age 16. This study included over 4900 and 3300 mother‒child pairs at ages 8 and 16, respectively. Binary and multinomial logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the associations.
Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were not associated with lower offspring IQ at ages 8 or 16. Although gestational hypertension, but not pre-eclampsia, was associated with higher odds of above-average IQ compared with average IQ at age 16 in the multinomial logistic regression model, this association was not observed at age 8 or replicated in the sensitivity analysis using age-specific IQ tertiles.
We found no evidence that hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were associated with lower offspring IQ at ages 8 or 16. Further studies are warranted to confirm these findings.

PMID:
42672337
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Sep 2026.

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