The Effect of Preeclampsia on the Quality of Life of Children

Children who born to pregnant women with preeclampsia are at risk of having low physical and cognitive functions due to the influence of placental blood flow ischemia which affects children's neurodevelopment. The object of this research was to determine the effect of preeclampsia during pregnancy on the quality of life of children 2-4 years. The study used a retrospective cohort. The sample was 104 (consisted of 52 pregnant women with preeclampsia and 52 normal pregnant women), not suffering from chronic disease, taken randomly. Preeclampsia was assessed based on the diagnosis from medical records, while children’s quality of life was assessed using PedsQL. Data were analyzed by using logistic regression. The results showed preeclampsia has an effect on physical quality of children (p-value 0.03 <0.05), but did not affect the child's social and emotional function. Children born to mothers with preeclampsia are at 5.9 times the risk of having low physical quality compared to children born to normal maternal pregnancies. Early efforts are needed to stimulate children born to mothers who suffer from Preeclampsia in order to obtain optimal quality of life and physical function.