MiscellaneousCardiovascular Function Before, During, and After the First and Subsequent Pregnancies☆
Section snippets
Study Group:
Thirty, healthy, physically active, nonsmoking women were recruited before pregnancy and studied serially before, during, and for 1 year after a clinically normal, singleton pregnancy. Fifteen were nulliparous and 15 were parous (1 or 2 previous pregnancies) at the time of enrollment. All delivered at term, breast fed for 3 to 9 months, and used barrier forms of contraception. The protocol was approved by the institutional review committees and all subjects gave informed consent at the time of
Subject Characteristics:
The subjects all were in good health, and, on the basis of education (18 ± 1 year) and income (upper 2 quartiles for state and county of residence), were classified as coming from the middle and upper socioeconomic class. Most (26 of 30) exercised regularly before, during, and after their pregnancy. They were 32 ± 1 years of age, weighed 61.0 ± 1.8 kg before pregnancy, and returned to that weight by 1 year after delivery (61.6 ± 1.8 kg). Their prepregnancy percent body fat, estimated from 5
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first that has prospectively assessed the serial changes in central cardiovascular function in healthy women before, during, and for a protracted period of time after pregnancy. The data confirm earlier findings indicating that the cardiovascular changes of pregnancy begin early and are largely completed in the first half of pregnancy.1, 5, 6, 7, 11 Second, the consistent differences seen in the magnitude of the absolute changes in the parous
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgment:
We wish to thank Karen H. Risk, Sarah Appleby-Wineberg, Mary Kortan, and Beth Lopez for there expert assistance in conducting these studies.
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This study was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants HD11089, HD21268, and RR00080, Bethesda, Maryland; and funds from MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland Ohio, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Germany.