Offspring birth weight and parental cardiovascular mortality

Background Mothers bearing small offspring are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. The cardiovascular risk for fathers of small offspring is, however, inconclusive. Very few studies with sufficiently large sample sizes have been conducted to specifically differentiate the maternal/paternal CVD risk in association with offspring birth weight in the same population. Methods This study followed 1 400 383 primigravida and their spouses with singleton births registered in Taiwan between 1978 and 1987 to the end of 2006. By linking to the mortality registry, the hazards ratio (HR) of parental cardiovascular mortality was measured in relation to lower offspring birth weights. Results The covariate-adjusted HR and 95% confidence interval (CI) of CVD mortality for 1 standard deviation higher offspring birth weight was reduced (HR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.85–0.94) for mothers, but less obvious for fathers (HR = 0.97; 95% CI: 0.95–1.00). Analyses of the categorical offspring birth weights revealed that the association between bearing low-birth-weight offspring (