Abstract
Pre-eclampsia is a gestational complication with immense outcomes on foetal/ infant and maternal health. This study assessed haematological variables of pre-eclamptic pregnant women receiving antenatal care at University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Calabar. Following due ethical considerations, 90 subjects aged 18-45 years were enrolled. They comprised 30 pre-eclamptic patients admitted into the antenatal ward, UCTH; 30 pregnant women with no medical condition attending antenatal clinic, UCTH and 30 apparently healthy non-pregnant women of same age range as control subjects. Weight, height and blood pressure were measured while a pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to obtain demographic data. Packed cell volume (PCV), haemoglobin (HB), red blood cell count (RBC), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration (MCHC), white blood cell count (WBC) with differentials, platelet count and mean platelet volume (MPV) were determined using Sysmex Haematology autoanalyzer (Sysmex, Japan). Significantly lower (p<0.05) PCV, HB, MCV and platelet count were recorded among pre-eclamptic patients compared to the pregnant and non-pregnant controls. Conversely, body mass index, blood pressures, MCHC, WBC and MPV of pre-eclamptic patients were significantly higher (p<0.05) compared to pregnant and non-pregnant controls. There were also significant differences (p<0.05) in RBC and differential white cell count among the three groups. Also, we observed appearance of protein in urine associated with increased blood pressure. It is concluded that haematological changes occur in pre-eclampsia and these changes reflect the bodys response to systemic inflammation induced by pregnancy and amplified by the presence of hypertension.
Highlights
Pregnancy is the physiological situation of carrying a developing embryo or foetus within the female body in the uterus
Selection of subjects A total of 90 subjects aged 18-45 years were recruited for the study. They comprised of 30 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia admitted in the antenatal ward of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), 30 pregnant women without any complications attending antenatal clinic in UCTH and 30 non-pregnant apparently healthy women drawn from staff of UCTH who served as control subjects
The packed cell volume and haemoglobin concentration, red blood cell count (RBC) and mean corpuscular volume (MCV) of the preeclampsia patients were significantly lower (p
Summary
Pregnancy is the physiological situation of carrying a developing embryo or foetus within the female body in the uterus. Pre-eclampsia (previously called toxemia of pregnancy), is a medical situation in which hypertension is present in pregnancy in association with high concentrations of protein in the urine. It usually occurs in the second or third trimesters of pregnancy and if not arrested on time, leads to eclampsia. Apart from the presence of pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) and pregnancy-induced proteinuria arising after 20 weeks gestation, other findings in pre-eclampsia include renal insufficiency, hepatocellular dysfunction, convulsions (eclampsia), severe headaches as well as haematological disturbances which comprise thrombocytopenia, disseminated intravascular coagulation and haemolysis (Duckitt, 2005). Pre-eclampsia and eclampsia can affect liver and kidney function often leading to haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets (HELLP syndrome) and in rare cases, decreased blood flow to the brain which could result in a stroke (Sheikh and Venyo, 2012; Maybury and Waugh, 2004)
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