The Effect of Caffeine Treatment during Organogenesis Period on the Birth Weight of the Rat Fetuses (Rattus norvegicus)

The study was conducted to investigate the effects of caffeine treatment during organogenesis period to the fetal birth weight, using rat (Rattus norvegicus) as the animal model. Thirty-six primipara rat obtained from Unit Pengembangan Hewan Percobaan, Gadjah Mada University (UPHP-GMU), 3 month old, 165-200 g body weight, were divided into 6 groups, consisted of 6 rats each. Six of the rats have been selected based on the estrous cycles, and only rat with regular estrous were use for the experiment. The rat then were mated, and during day 6-14 of the pregnancies were treated orally with caffeine diluted in aquadest in dosage: placebo (1 cc aquadest) for group I (control), and 5.4, 10.8, 16.2, 21.6, and 27 g/200 g body weight/day for treatment groups II-VI respectively. The pregnant rat body weights were determined at day 6 of pregnancies for calculating the caffeine treatment dosages. At day 20 th of the pregnancies all of the pregnant rats were caesarotomized, and all of the fetuses were removed and weighed. The results showed that all of the treatment groups have significantly lower birth weight compare to the groups control group. More over, fetal obtained from the treatment groups also showed serious subcutaneous hemorrhagic. Keywords: organogenesis, Rattus norvegicus, birth weight