Women Who Have Infants with Heart Defects Are at Elevated Risk for Heart Disease

Heart defects are the most common congenital abnormality. To see whether they affect maternal long-term cardiovascular outcomes, investigators analyzed longitudinal data on postpregnancy cardiovascular hospitalizations in over 1 million women with at least one live birth and no preexisting cardiovascular disease in Quebec, Canada, from 1989 to 2013.

Infant heart defects were categorized by severity (critical or noncritical). After adjustment for demographics and some baseline risk factors, a woman whose infant had a heart defect had an elevated risk for cardiovascular hospitalization during follow-up (≤25 years). Compared to women whose infants lacked heart defects, mothers of infants with critical and noncritical heart defects were 43% and …