Gen Z’ers and millennials are about twice as likely to develop high blood pressure during pregnancy than women from the baby boomer generation were, a new study finds. This includes conditions such as pre-eclampsia and gestational hypertension.

It is usually believed that the odds of developing high blood pressure during pregnancy rise with the age of the mother, but after taking age into account, researchers discovered that women born in and after 1981 were still at greater risk.

“While there are many reasons for the generational changes observed, we hypothesise that this is, in large part, due to the observed generational decline in heart health,” said study co-author Dr Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“We are seeing more people in more recent generations entering pregnancy with risk factors such as obesity.”