WEDNESDAY, March 25, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Offspring of mothers with placental abruption during their pregnancy have an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD mortality, according to a study published online March 25 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Cande V. Ananth, Ph.D., M.P.H., from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Placental Abruption and Cardiovascular Event Risk cohort to estimate the abruption-associated risks for mortality in singleton offspring and for fatal and nonfatal CVD events. To minimize familial confounding, these associations were replicated in a sibling-pair analysis.
The prevalence of abruption was 1 percent in a cohort of 2,949,992 singleton pregnancies. Offspring were followed for a median of 14.5 years. The researchers found that the offspring CVD mortality rates were 4 and 1 per 100,000 person-years among births with and without abruption, respectively (adjusted hazard ratio, 4.64). For nonfatal CVD, the corresponding rates were 627 and 190 per 100,000 person-years, respectively (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.86). In analyses restricted to offspring aged younger than 1 year with CVD events, the risks were higher. In the sibling pair analyses, these associations were similar.
"Our study suggests that placental abruption needs to be taken as a very serious complication for the mother and also potentially affecting the baby's cardiovascular health later in life," Ananth said in a statement. "Our study shows it is important that their children are also monitored to identify potential complications due to their increased risk of cardiovascular disease."