Main results
Twenty-six studies including 1921 patients were included, of which most
were cohort studies of mixed quality. The type of ACS exposure,
gestational age at exposure, dose and number of administrations varied
widely. Offspring cardiovascular outcomes were assessed from one day to
36 years postnatally. The most commonly assessed parameter was arterial
blood pressure (18 studies), followed by echocardiography (8 studies),
heart rate (5 studies), electrocardiogram (ECG, 3 studies) and cardiac
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI, 1 study). There were no clinically
significant effects of ACS exposure on offspring blood pressure.
However, there were insufficient studies assessing cardiac structure and
function using echocardiography or cardiac MRI to be able to determine
an effect.