Prediction Of Neonatal Risk Of Hypertension From Cardiovascular Characteristics Determined At Birth

The contribution to risk by genetics is a primary factor for the predisposition of a newbom to elevated blood pressure (BP) later in life. In the search for an index of this factor, circadian characteristics and descriptive statistics of systolic (S) and diastolic (D) BP and heart rate (HR) series automatically monitored on 95 newboms at about 30-min intervals for 48 hrs were used in a multiple regression analysis to compute a linear prediction function for a cardiovascular risk score (CRS). This CRS was obtained for each neonate on the basis of the presence of overt cardiovascular disease, elevated BP or obesity across 2 generations of his family. The results provide a neonatal index of cardiovascular risk, to be used for the evaluation of the effects on the newbom of intervention on the pregnant women.