Commentary on “Childhood cardiovascular health and subfertility: The Bogalusa Heart Study”

In this issue of Pediatric Research, Wang et al.2 explore possible links between childhood cardiovascular disease risk and subfertility in the Bogalusa Heart Study Babies sub-study. This study uniquely evaluated these associations to expand our understanding of the importance of cardiovascular health over the life course on subfertility in women. Overall, they found that childhood and adolescent risk factors in girls were generally not associated with indicators of self-reported fertility at about 45 years of age. Rather, pre-pregnancy systolic blood pressure was most consistently associated with multiple markers of infertility, such as indications of whether treatment was sought or whether a couple tried to conceive for over 12 months.