Abstract

Lipids in Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Birth Weight

Shakuntala Chhabra, Tembhare A and Agrawal V

Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy affect growth of fetus, birth weight too. However all babies are not small. This might have something to do with lipids.

Objective: Present study was to study serum lipid levels in normal pregnant, women with HDsP, specially lipid abnormalities in HDsP and birth weight of baby.

Materials and methods: Prospective study was carried out with singleton pregnancy, gestational age more than 20 weeks with HDsP. Normotensive pregnant women, matched for age, (+2) parity (+1), gestational age (+2 weeks) were controls. Fasting serum lipids, cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoproteins (HDL), low density lipoproteins (LDL), very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) were estimated at entry, repeated 7 days. Criterion for small for gestation weight was less than 2500 gms birth weight of >37 weeks babies. Preterm were excluded for analysis.

Results: During study there were 7233 births, 964 had HDsP (13.32%), 635 (66%) term (>37 weeks) pregnancy. Of 451 women with mild gestational hypertension (GH), 425 had abnormal lipids, 117 (27.52%) of them, of 26 with normal lipids, 23.07% had SGA babies, more babies SGA with higher LDL, VLDL, Tri glycerides, lower HDL. Among 58 term cases with severe GH, 50 had abnormal lipid levels, 8 (16%) and of 8 with normal lipids, one (12.5%) had SGA baby, more babies SGA with abnormal lipids. Among 65 of term gestation with mild PE, 48 had abnormal lipids, 17 (35.41%) and of 17 with normal lipids 4 (23.52%) had SGA babies with abnormal lipids, more SGA babies with abnormal lipids. With severe PE, all 44 had some lipid abnormality, 59% had SGA babies. All 17 with eclampsia at term had abnormal lipids, 16 (94.11%) had SGA babies. However in all categories difference was statistically insignificant.

Conclusion: Lipid abnormalities were present in quite a few cases of HDsP and when present affected baby weight. A lot of more research is needed.