Trends in Triglyceride (Fat) Levels of Various Stages of Pregnancy in Nigerian Women

Abstract

Background: In developing countries like Nigeria, with poor socio-economic, early marriage, poor acceptance of contraception, poor spacing of pregnancies, high fertility rate and poor maternal and child health indices, leading to poor maternal-child outcome. There is a need to investigate the pattern of serum lipid changes during pregnancy in Nigeria women as hyperlipidemia may lead to poor maternal outcome. Materials and methods: A total of one hundred and forty (140) subjects between the ages of 20 and 45 years with mean age 29.74 ± 6.5 years of the study population. Group 1: the control comprises of thirty-five (35) healthy non pregnant subjects with mean age of 26.84 ± 5.2 volunteers of Nigeria origin. Group 2: the test involved one hundred and five (105) apparently healthy pregnant Nigerian women sub-divided into three groups; X, Y and Z each made of thirty-five (35) subjects distributed into 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimester of pregnancy respectively. The TG assay was analyzed using enzymatic spectrophotometric method as described by Biosystems. Results: The result analysis showed a significant increase (p ≤ 0.05) in the TG level during the first trimester of pregnancy when compared with control as shown in Table 1. There was a significant increase (p ≤ 0.05) in the TG levels during the second trimester of pregnancy when compared with that of the control subjects. During the third trimester of pregnancy there was a significant increase in TG levels when compared with the control subjects. Conclusion: This work revealed that the most dramatic change in the lipid profile in normal pregnancy is serum hypertriglyceridemia, which may be as high as two-three folds in the third trimester over the levels in non pregnant subjects. The estimation of lipid profile is strongly recommended as part of the laboratory investigations during pregnancy. Since studies in recent past have incriminated abnormal lipid metabolism during pregnancy in the pathogenesis of atherosclerotic, ischemia heart disease, intrauterine growth disease, intrauterine growth retardation and hypertension.