A placenta test can identify women at risk for pregnancy disorders, according to researchers. With a simple test of hormones, researchers can determine if women have certain biomarkers present that put them at higher risk for pregnancy complications. Because of this, intervention can be given at a much earlier stage in pregnancy in hopes of mitigating or even eliminating damage caused to mother and baby.
Researchers from St John's College, University of Cambridge, have developed a way to test the hormones in the placenta to determine if women are at risk for pregnancy disorders. And unlike the current tests that can only identify pregnancy disorders in the second and sometimes, third trimesters, the hormone test can be conducted during the first trimester, according to Medical Xpress.
The study, published in Nature Communications Biology, found that there was an ability to determine if pregnant women were at a higher risk for developing gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, or if their babies would have problems with their growth. And because all of these pregnancy disorders can have serious consequences the longer they are left untreated, starting treatment before the disorders have affected the pregnancy keeps both mother and baby safer for the duration of the pregnancy.
According to Health.am, nearly 10 percent of women will suffer from a pregnancy complication while expecting. And while some can be more devastating than others, all require treatment to allow for the healthiest of pregnancies possible. And the sooner that treatment can be administered, the less chance for lifelong complications occurring.
To determine that the placenta could be used to predict pregnancy complications, researchers used mouse models. According to ScienceDirect, the researchers took the proteins found in the placenta and compared them to both women who had no complications present during pregnancy and those who had gestational diabetes.
Researchers then used this information to study the endocrine cells in the mouse placenta. This was done, according to Medical Xpress, to identify which hormones the endocrine cells expressed. And from there, according to the publication, a map of the proteins in the placenta was created.
What researchers found, according to the study, was that the map of the mouse model placenta was very similar to that of the human placenta. And because of this, researchers were able to see that around 12 weeks gestation, one-third of the proteins in the human placenta changed when there was a pregnancy disorder present.
The research to this point was not conducted while women were pregnant. Therefore, to see if these biomarkers could be seen during pregnancy, according to Medical Xpress, researchers reviewed pregnancies that took place at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. What they found was that the biomarkers for pregnancy disorders could be seen in blood samples, which would then predict a pregnancy disorder earlier in pregnancy than what technology today was capable of doing.
While there is still more work to be done to understand the placenta further, researchers hope this is the first step in ensuring that mothers and babies have the safest of pregnancies possible either by being able to provide medical interventions earlier or, perhaps, "treat pregnancy complications by targeting the placenta" alone.
Source: Medical Xpress, ScienceDaily, Nature Communications Biology, Health.am