A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE STRUCTURAL AND HISTOPATHOLOGICAL CHANGES IN THE PLACENTAE OF HYPERTENSIVE AND NORMOTENSIVE MOTHERS AND A CORRELATION OF THESE FINDINGS WITH THE BIRTH WEIGHTS OF THEIR BABIES.

Abstract

Background: The placenta being the main organ directly involved with fetal development in the womb. Being a crucial organ responsible for the pregnancy and fetal nutrition it has generated keen interest and research to understand the placental morphology. This work aims in delivering the structural changes observed in placenta of mothers with hypertension and to do a comparative analysis with respect to the new born birth weight with the normotensive mothers. Objective: To identify & investigate pathological changes of the placenta in cases of pregnancy-related high blood pressure & to nd out correlation of such changes with neonatal birth weight as compared to that in normotensive mothers and also observation of changes in placental tissue specimens of hypertensive mothers. The study also compared fetoplacental (FP) ratios in both groups. Materials and Methods: This study was done on 50 placentae. 25 mothers with normal pregnancies and 25 mothers with hypertension due to pregnancy were selected from obstetrics and gynecology patients at the Medical College, Kolkata. All samples were then examined for structural and histological changes. The neonatal birth weights were also recorded with the help of weighing scale. Results: In our analysis, 25 (50%) patients were hypertensive (group A) and 25 (50%) were normotensive (group B). Morphometric parameters considered in these two patient groups are placental weight, placental volume, central placental thickness, and cotyledon number. Mean differences for each of these parameters were compared and found to be statistically signicant. Fetal weight was also measured in each case, the F-P ratio was observed, and the mean F-P ratio in Group A and Group B was also compared