Blood pressure and birth weight: how did I not know this?

[walkitout]

Starting in the early to mid-1990s, there were studies showing a correlation between high blood pressure in middle age and low birth weight. These studies included meta-studies in the US, studies in South Africa, the UK and elsewhere. There are a lot of them. More recent examples discover Things We Knew, like, sometimes blood pressure measurements are rounded up or down, creating "buckets" rather than a smoother curve of "actual" measurements -- and it turns out that tends to weaken the finding.

I am utterly stunned that I did not know this. I really am. I've read a ridiculous amount about how prenatal and early childhood "program" our adult health status, about nutrition, about health measures such as blood pressure. And yet I didn't know about this one.

I feel like this may be one of those things that doesn't match a narrative (Fat Babies Make Fat Adults! Fat Adults Are Sick And Cost Us All Money! Pregnant Women Must Watch Their Weight!!!!) and thus hasn't gotten a lot of coverage, but maybe it's just One of Those Things.

I come from a family with a lot of ridiculously huge babies (almost all over 9 lbs, many over 10 lbs) who grow up to be large adults (in height, especially in shoe size, and overall as well -- women with broad shoulders, type of thing), yet persist in having normal or even low blood pressure. The few among us who are shorter and smaller in general are the ones who have high blood pressure, and they complain about the unfairness. Really makes you wonder.

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I remember my husband pointing out some study years ago that showed a correlation between small-for-gestational-age birth weight and visceral fat in later life. It freaked him out a bit as he was under six pounds at birth (and full term as far as he knows). That was in the days when women were being encouraged to gain as little weight as possible during pregnancy -- his brother (now six-four and bigger boned than B.) was six and a half pounds or something. (Edited to add that his mother confirmed that she probably restricted her diet too much, back when we were all marveling at how big the twins turned out to be.) But I don't know what was normal for their families at all. It seems like the kind of thing that would be highly relative.