Pregnancy

About: Pregnancy is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 163969 publications have been published within this topic receiving 4013502 citations. The topic is also known as: pregnancy & gestation.

Obstetric complications associated with the lupus anticoagulant.

Abstract: We identified eight patients with the lupus anticoagulant (an autoantibody acquired by some patients with systemic lupus erythematosus), by observation of an increased activated partial thromboplastin time and abnormal results on a tissue thromboplastin-inhibition test. The patients had experienced a total of 30 spontaneous abortions and fetal deaths in 31 previous pregnancies (96.8 per cent). During their next pregnancy, the patients were treated with 40 to 50 mg of prednisone per day and 81 mg of aspirin per day. The therapy shortened their activated partial thromboplastin times, produced normal values for tissue thromboplastin inhibition, and reduced the rate of pregnancy loss to 37.5 per cent. However, preeclampsia developed in the five patients who gave birth to live infants, and fetal growth retardation occurred in three cases. The corticosteroid and low-dose aspirin regimen appears to improve perinatal outcome in cases in which the mother has the lupus anticoagulant, but such practices as careful fetal surveillance and preterm delivery when appropriate are also important to successful obstetric management of such cases.

Cellular Mechanisms for Insulin Resistance in Normal Pregnancy and Gestational Diabetes

Abstract: The incidence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has doubled over the last 6–8 years and is paralleling the obesity epidemic. GDM carries long-term implications for the subsequent development of type 2 diabetes in the mother and increased risk for obesity and glucose intolerance in the offspring. Insulin resistance exists before pregnancy in women with a history of GDM but worsens during gestation. Insulin secretion is inadequate to compensate for the insulin resistance, leading to hyperglycemia that is detected by routine glucose screening in pregnancy. Thus, chronic insulin resistance is a central component of the pathophysiology of GDM. Human pregnancy is characterized by a series of metabolic changes that promote adipose tissue accretion in early gestation, followed by insulin resistance and facilitated lipolysis in late pregnancy. In early pregnancy, insulin secretion increases, while insulin sensitivity is unchanged, decreased, or may even increase (1,2). However, in late gestation, maternal adipose tissue depots decline, while postprandial free fatty acid (FFA) levels increase and insulin-mediated glucose disposal worsens by 40–60% compared with prepregnancy (2). The ability of insulin to suppress whole-body lipolysis is also reduced during late pregnancy (3), and this is further reduced in GDM subjects (4), contributing to greater postprandial increases in FFAs, increased hepatic glucose production, and severe insulin resistance (2,5–7). Although various placental hormones have been suggested to reprogram maternal physiology to meet fetal needs, the cellular mechanisms for this complex transition remain obscure (8). Further, the critical molecular mechanisms involved in increasing maternal lipid flux in obese women throughout pregnancy that may underlie skeletal muscle insulin resistance and increased fetal fuels are just beginning to be investigated. Skeletal muscle is the principal site of whole-body glucose disposal, and along with adipose tissue, becomes severely insulin resistant during the latter half of pregnancy. Normal …