(ABC/WSYR-TV) - We all know high blood pressure is bad for you, but there's word that expecting moms can pass along its harmful effects to their kids, even into their old age.
Pregnancy is that critical nine months when the structure and function of a child's brain develop.
For a study in the journal "Neurology," researchers looked at almost 400 adult men born between 1934 and 1944.
Their thinking abilities, including math and language skills, were assessed at age 20 and then again at age 69.
The finding: men born to mothers who had high blood pressure during pregnancy scored lower at both ages.
The men in the study also had a greater decline in the measures of intellectual ability across the decades, especially in math reasoning.
The authors conclude that a mother's high blood pressure during pregnancy predicts lower cognitive ability and greater cognitive decline in her adult offspring.
