Lipids in Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Birth Weight

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.