Having this during pregnancy increases risk of seizures in kids

By Stephen Beech

High blood pressure during pregnancy increases the risk of seizures in children, warns new research.

A "significant association" between high blood pressure in moms-to-be, known as gestational hypertension, and seizures in their offspring was found in the study.

Scientists at the University of Iowa Health Care in the US used clinical databases and innovative animal models to uncover the "critical" link.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, also suggest that inflammation in the brain may play a role in connecting gestational hypertension to the risk of seizures.

The research team says that inflammation in the brain could potentially be targeted to prevent seizures in children exposed to hypertension in the womb.

Gestational hypertension affects around one in six pregnancies.

It has long been associated with several health complications for both mothers and their children.

But the new research is the first large-scale evidence connecting gestational hypertension to heightened seizure risk.

Study senior author Dr. Alex Bassuk said: “We examined large national clinical databases as well as databases at the University of Iowa and Stanford University, and we even have international collaborations with database analysis from our collaborators in Taiwan.

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"This was a real team effort spanning several countries and institutions, and involved multiple departments at the University of Iowa, including pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychology.”

The study analyzed data from the Epic Cosmos dataset, which includes more than 246 million patient records from hospitals and clinics across the United States and Lebanon.

The research team found that children born to moms with high blood pressure during pregnancy had "significantly higher" rates of seizures compared to those born to mothers with normal blood pressure.

The association was further validated using smaller groups from the University of Iowa and Stanford University, as well as a large Taiwanese group.

To explore the underlying biological mechanisms linking high blood pressure in pregnancy to increased seizure risk, the research team used two complementary mouse models of gestational hypertension.

The models confirmed that exposure to gestational hypertension in the womb increased seizure sensitivity and death due to seizures in offspring.

The mouse models also identified neuroinflammation as playing a "significant" role in the disease process, and highlighted sex-specific differences, with male offspring showing greater vulnerability to seizures.

Study co-author Dr. Vinit Mahajan, of Stanford University, said: "This study is unique because you have an association drawn from analyses of large clinical databases, but then we go on to prove the association with animal models.

“We were even able to reduce seizures in mouse offspring with anti-inflammatory drugs based on what we learned from the model."

The researchers hope the new understanding of the link between high blood pressure in pregnancy and pediatric seizures in children will open new avenues for research.

Study first author Dr. Baojian Xue said: "The connection between high blood pressure in pregnant moms and seizures in children from these pregnancies had been postulated before, but never examined on a large scale, and never modelled in an animal."

Dr. Xue, senior research scientist in pediatrics at the University of Iowa, added: "With these new mouse models and this new connection between gestational hypertension and seizures, we can now perhaps come up with new childhood anti-seizure therapies."