Postnatal changes in maternal serum antioxidant vitamins

Abstract

Objective: Aim of this study was to investigate the change in serum concentrations of antioxidant vitamins in postnatal mothers with respect to those in prenatal prenatal mothers. Methods: The study comprised 39 healthy postnatal mothers, who delivered their babies at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka. Reversed phase HPLC and spectrophotometric methods were employed to determine the serum concentrations of vitamin E, A, and C. SPSS software package was used to analyze the data. Results: The postnatal serum concentrations of vitamin E, C, and A were 15.305.04μmol/L, 18.4110.76μmol/L and 0.870.35μmol/L respectively. Compared to the prenatal vitamins levels, a significant decrease in vitamin E concentration (15.305.04 vs 23.548.5μmol/L, p=0.000), and increase in vitamin C and A (18.4110.76 vs 14.08.2μmol/L, p=0.000; 0.870.35 vs 0.850.24μmol/L, p=0.015) were obtained in the postnatal mothers. It was noted that the majority of postnatal mothers had vitamin E and A value in the middle and high range. It was in lower range for vitamin C. Conclusion: Compared to the prenatal level, serum vitamin C and A levels were observed increase, while vitamin E level was lowered significantly (p<0.05) in postnatal mother. Report on postnatal antioxidant vitamins is scanty. However, this is by far the second report on the postnatal maternal serum antioxidant vitamins.