Evaluation of Cardiovascular Markers in Normotensive Pregnant Women

Pregnancy is associated with series of biochemical changes such as changes in cardiovascular markers. These changes may contribute to risk of developing cardiovascular disease among this group of people. Therefore, this work was aimed at evaluating changes in cardiovascular biochemical markers in pregnancy. This research was a cross-sectional study with 150 female subjects divided into three groups; control (non-pregnant women), 2nd trimester and 3rd trimester. Each of the group had 50 subjects each. Subjects were selected randomly from Rivers State University and Rivers State University Teaching Hospital. Fasting blood was collected using venipuncture technique (WHO, 2010). The collected blood was carefully dispensed into plain vacutainer tubes and assayed for uric acid, Apo A1 and B, CRP, TG, HDL and TC while VLDL and LDL were calculated. The data obtained from the study were analyzed using GraphPad Prism Version 8.0.2.263. ANOVA results revealed that there were significant differences in TC, TG, LDL, HDL, VLDL, CRP, ApoA1, and ApoB levels among non-pregnant, 2nd trimester and 3rd trimester groups of normotensive pregnant women (P<0.05) except for uric acid (UA) that showed no significant difference. Post hoc analysis revealed significant difference in studied parameters between groups except in HDL, TG and VLDL in non-pregnant and 2nd trimester group while UA remained non-significant between compared groups. This study has shown that pregnancy causes significant changes in cardiovascular risk markers in healthy pregnant women.