Systematic review of the effects of maternal hypertension in pregnancy and antihypertensive therapies on child neurocognitive development

As many as 15% of women experience hypertension during pregnancy. Large proportions of them are receiving antihypertensive medications. This review investigated whether hypertension itself, or the antihypertensive medications, adversely affect long term child neurocognitive development. The existing evidence suggests that methyldopa and labetalol probably do not adversely affect neurobehavioral development. Although an increasing body of evidence suggests adverse neurocognitive effects of the hypertension itself, none of the existing studies examined simultaneously the effects of both hypertension and the drugs used therapeutically. The confounding effects by indication must be addressed in future studies.