Hypomagnesaemia in Pregnancy: A predictor of Preterm Labour

Abstract

Preterm birth is a major health concern. It is the leading cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity. Besides varied etiology, it may be due to alteration in basic biochemical function of the body at cellular level stating emphasis to trace elements of which magnesium, being one of them. Pregnancy is marked by a state of hypomagnesaemia and varied hypomagnesaemia is observed in preterm labour cases. The study is conducted to find out the relationship between low serum magnesium concentrations with preterm labour, with a view to ascertain it as one of the predictor of preterm labour. This study has been designed as cross sectional case control study. 100 pregnant women with preterm labour were taken as case and 100 women with term labour as control. It is found that mean level of serum magnesium was lower in preterm labour as compared with term labour. The study shows that there is significant decrease in magnesium in maternal body in case of preterm labour. The study also shows that the relative risk of preterm labour was 3.18 times more in patients with serum magnesium level less than 1.9 mg/ dl in comparison to those who had the level of 1.9 mg/dl or more. Low level of serum magnesium significantly correlated with the preterm labour. Moreover different studies also shows that the decreased serum magnesium level has an association with the uterine irritability leads to the preterm labour. As such, it is assumed that the low serum magnesium concentration in pregnancy has a role in pathophysiology of preterm labour and may be used as a predictor of preterm labour. Key words: Hypomagnesaemia; predictor; preterm labour. DOI: 10.3329/jdmc.v19i1.6253 J Dhaka Med Coll. 2010; 19(1) : 51-57

The correlation between maternal hypomagnesemia and preterm labour

“…16 In this study, the age of the women, their parity, history of miscarriages and employment status were comparable in study and control groups, which exclude their effect on the result; similar to Kamal's et al and Shahid et al findings. 17,18 The number of preterm labour cases belong to lower socioeconomic class was significantly higher than high or middle classes, the same as Sharma A et al findings. 19 On the contrary Khani et al demonstrated non-significant increase in preterm labour among low socioeconomic class women may be due to the smaller sample size in his study when he took only 40 pregnant women.…”

Maternal Magnesium Level Effect on Preterm Labor Treatment

“…Similar findings were reported by Shahid et al (29), Uludag et al (25), Okunade et al (8), Kamal et al (13), Bhat and Waheed (31). In Okunade's study, the mean of serum magnesium level was 1.73±0.4 versus 1.93 ± 0.4 mg/dL in the case and control groups, respectively (8).…”

“…In their study, Uludag et al reported similar findings and concluded that basal serum magnesium level had a predictive value in evaluating MgSO4 response to tocolysis (25). Other studies suggested that serum magnesium level in pregnancy could be a valuable tool in predicting preterm onset of labor (29,30) and some suggested prophylactic oral magnesium supplementation in women with higher risk for the development of preterm labor (8,14,32).…”

“…In Okunade's study, the mean of serum magnesium level was 1.73±0.4 versus 1.93 ± 0.4 mg/dL in the case and control groups, respectively (8). Shahid et al also found a significantly lower serum magnesium level in women with preterm labor compared to that in the women of control group (1.60 ± 0.466 vs. 1.87 ± 0.3) (29). In the studies of Kamal et al and Begum et al, serum magnesium level in women with preterm labor was reported significantly low as 1.4 ± 0.22 SD and 1.77 ± 0.36, respectively (13,32).…”

Milking Versus Delayed Cord Clamping in Full Term Neonates Delivered by Elective Caesarean Section a Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Since we are trying to introduce a predictive test, all women within the usual age range of the Egyptian pregnant population (16-40 years) were included in our analyses, our study found no signifi cant difference in age, parity, and body mass index between the case and control groups which confi rmed similarities in the two groups used in the study, The incidence of hypomagnesaemia among the healthy parturient used in the study after excluding most of the major risk factors was found to be 36%.This is slightly lower than the incidence of 46% found among similar number of patients studied by [12].…”