Relationships of infant birth size to maternal lipoproteins, apoproteins, fuels, hormones, some biochemical changes and body weight at 36 weeks gestation

It has been hypothesized that plasma triglyceride fatty acids may traverse the placenta and contribute to infant adiposity, particularly in gestational diabetes mellitus [GDM]. Also, high density lipoprotein [HDL] can both deliver cholesterol to and remove it from the placenta. To determine if these maternal parameters are related to the fetal growth in normal; the relationships of lipoproteins, apoproteins, hormones, fuels, some biochemical changes and maternal weight at 36 weeks gestation to infant birth weight, birth weight ratio, birth length and head circumference in a cohort of pregnant women attending a prepard health plan have been examined. The results have shown that the birth weight and/or birth weight ratio [birth weight corrected for gestational age], birth length and head circumference in such pregnant women are weekly positively associated with maternal VLDL triglycerides and statistically significantly positively associated with apoprotein A-II, placental lactogen, estradiol and maternal pre- pregnancy weight and pregnancy weigh gain. Glucose and insulin predict birth weight only in pairwise analysis. Significant negative predictors of birth weight ratio include VLDL, cholesterol, apoprotein A-II and creatinine. Significant positive predictors of birth length include apoprotein A-l, placental lactogen, and maternal weight gain. Apoprotein A-II negatively predicts birth length and only maternal pre-pregnancy weight predicts head circumference. The positive association of apoprotein A-l and the strong negative association of apoprotein A-II with birth weight and length point to a physiologically significant role for HDL in the fetal growth