ASSOCIATION OF VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY WITH PRETERM BIRTH

Abstract

Background; Every year, 15 million neonates worldwide are born preterm.  Of these, 1.1 million die as a result of complications of being born too soon and even more suffer from serious prematurity-related complications including learning disabilities. Several studies point to the fact that vitamin D is involved in the regulation of acquired and innate immune responses at the fetal-maternal interface across gestation. Vitamin D reduces the risk of spontaneous preterm birth also by maintaining myometrial quiescence. This study was conducted to determine the role of Vitamin D deficiency with preterm labor in our population. Objective; To determine the frequency of vitamin D deficiency in preterm labour. Setting; Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Fatima Memorial Hospital Lahore. Results; A total of 167 pregnant women were registered mean age of our study cases was 28.48 ± 3.58 years. Mean parity was 3.95 ± 1.15. Mean gestational age of our study cases was 30.29 ± 3.02 weeks. Majority of our study cases i.e. 105 (62.9%) had poor socioeconomic status, while 62 (37.1%) were from middle class while none of them were from rich class. Mean vitamin D level was 40.86 ± 8.51 ng/dl (with minimum vitamin D level was 22 ng/dl and maximum vitamin D level was 56 ng/dl). Vitamin D deficiency was seen in 27 (16.2%) of our study cases.

Conclusion; High frequency of Vitamin D deficiency was noted in our study population. Pregnant women should be screened routinely for Vitamin D levels, particularly those with previous history of preterm births to avoid them in subsequent pregnancies. Vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with poor socio-economic status, increasing age and gestational age less than 30 weeks.

Keywords; Vitamin D deficiency, preterm labor, gestational age.