A team of University of Oxford researchers, funded by the British Heart Foundation, have identified an entirely new risk factor for congenital heart disease (CHD). Using an animal model system, researchers have shown that if the mother is severely iron deficient and anaemic during early pregnancy, this greatly increases the risk that her offspring will have heart defects. In this research study maternal iron deficiency caused severe congenital heart defects in mice offspring, but if treated the baby’s heart developed normally. Around half of people with the genetic condition Down Syndrome have congenital heart disease. The team hypothesised that this genetic change in combination with the environmental factor of iron deficiency may increase the likelihood of CHD.
