PP083. Maternal pre-eclampsia and bone mineral density of the adult offspring.

Introduction: Preterm birth at very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500g) is associated with cardiometabolic risk factors and reduced bone mineral density (BMD) in the adult offspring. Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a frequent cause of preterm birth and is also associated with cardiometabolic risk factors in the offspring. Whether it is associated with BMD is not known.

Objective: To study BMD in adult offspring of mothers with pre-eclampsia.

Methods: We studied participants of the Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults: 144 born at VLBW and 139 born at term. From the VLBW and term offspring a respective 32 and 11 were born from pregnancy complicated by preeclampsia. We measured BMD at age 18-27 years by dual X-ray absorptiometry. We express BMD in Z scores which indicate the difference in SD units from the value expected for sex and age.

Results: VLBW adults exposed to maternal pre-eclampsia had higher lumbar spine Z score (mean -0.44 SD units, compared to -1.07 in unexposed VLBW adults, p=0.002) and femoral neck Z score (-0.05 vs. -0.53, p=0.003). Corresponding Z scores for those born at term were -0.02 (PE) and -0.45 (no PE) for lumbar spine (p=0.2), 0.78 and 0.08 for femoral neck (p=0.02). The Table shows mean differences after adjustment for offspring current body size and potential confounders.

Conclusions: Young adults exposed to maternal PE have higher BMD than those not exposed. This suggests that preeclampsia has a long-term protective effect on offspring bone health.