Response to letters regarding article, "Pulmonary and systemic vascular dysfunction in young offspring of mothers with preeclampsia"

Abstract

We thank Lazdam et al and Yuan et al for their interesting comments on our study.1 Lazdam et al point out that in our study, birth weight in offspring of mothers with preeclampsia was significantly lower than in controls, and suggest that the vascular impairment in offspring was caused by a combination of the independent effects of preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction rather than by preeclampsia per se. To test this hypothesis, we performed a subgroup analysis of 15 offspring of mothers with preeclampsia and 15 controls matched for birth weight (3080 291 versus 3077 398 g; P 0.98). We found that the difference in flow-mediated dilation between birth-weight-matched offspring of preeclampsia and controls (6.4% 1.3% versus 8.9% 1.2%; P 0.0001) tended to be even larger than the one we reported in the entire groups (6.3% 1.2% versus 8.3% 1.6%; P 0.0001). This additional analysis, together with the already reported lack of any significant relationship between birth weight and flow-mediated dilation, indicates that vascular dysfunction in these young offspring is related to preeclampsia alone, and that low birth weight does not contribute to this problem. We therefore do not overestimate the impact of preeclampsia on vascular function in these term offspring.