European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Nearly 20-25% of pregnant women have some degree of vaginal bleeding during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and about 50% of these progress to an actual abortion. Progesterone is a hormone that aids in the preservation of pregnancy. It has been reported that spontaneous pregnancy failure decreases with increasing maternal serum progesterone levels. Predicting continuation of pregnancy is crucial in cases of threatened abortion in order to provide appropriate care and effective management.
Objectives: To study the role of single serum progesterone levels on day of threatened miscarriage to predicting continuation of pregnancy. To study the relationship between continuation of pregnancy in early threatened miscarriage and maternal age, gestational age, presenting complaint and associated risk factors.
Material & Methods: The place of study is Institute of obstetrics and gynecology, Egmore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. The study involved 160 study participants, pregnant women with less than or equal to 12 weeks of gestation with complaint of spotting or bleeding PV. After obtaining informed consent basic sociodemographic and clinical history was recorded. 3 ml of venous blood was collected from the pregnant women. Serum progesterone and hemoglobin levels were assessed from the obtained blood samples. The data were analyzed.
Results: The results from our present study showed that the mean age for the study participants was 25.3± 4.08 years. Majority (76.6%) of the participants were in the age group between 20-30 years of age. Primi mothers constituted 47.5% of the study population. The most common presenting symptom in the study population was bleeding vaginum and Spotting per vaginum which constituted 46% of the total study population each. Anemia was observed in 22.6% of the study population. The mean hemoglobin value was 10.23±1.1. The mean serum progesterone value was 19.76±9.3. Increased values of serum progesterone levels had a significant association with the continuation of pregnancy while no significant association was noted between hemoglobin levels, body mass index and outcome of pregnancy.
Conclusion: Serum progesterone levels could be used as an effective diagnostic tool in aiding the diagnosis of viable pregnancies. The estimation of serum progesterone levels at a single point also alleviates the patients of inconvenient procedures and is also a cost effective alternative.