Publication:

High incidences of low serum magnesium in pre-eclampsia and eclampsia than in normal pregnancy

Background Hypertension is one of the most frequently encountered medical disorder in obstetrics practice and remain a major cause of maternal, fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Objectives was to find out the high incidences of low serum magnesium in pre-eclampsia and eclampsia than in normal pregnancy.

Methods All consenting 50 cases of normal pregnant women and 50 women with pre-eclampsia attending antenatal clinic for checkup of ≥20 weeks who fulfills the inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in the study. Serum magnesium was measured by Calmagite method.

Results Out of 100 primigravidae 50 cases of pre-eclampsia women were in the age group of 18-30 years and the mean serum magnesium was 1.156±0.328. In contrast out of 50 cases of pregnant women were in the age group of 18-30 years and the mean serum magnesium was 1.907±0.321. The difference between the mean serum magnesium level in pre-eclampsia and normal pregnant women cases were statistically significant (p=0.0016). The study presented below it is clear that there are numerous factors that contribute to the causality of pre-eclampsia and from our analysis it was clear that the serum magnesium levels show an irregular pattern of fluctuations in cases suffering from pre-eclampsia and can be attributed to numerous physiological causes.

Conclusions Our study shows a significant reduction of serum magnesium levels in pre-eclampsia cases compared to normal pregnant women and occurrence of both maternal and neonatal complications with the serum magnesium levels decreased.