Placental phosphatase of maternal serum: relationship to pregravid weight, prenatal weight gain, and infant birthweight in normal human pregnancies.

Serum placental phosphatase (heat-stable alkaline phosphatase, HSAP) was measured in the following gravidae with normal weight gain: 71 normal weight normal subjects (NWN), 26 overweight normal subjects (OWN), and 28 underweight normal subjects (UWN); and in the following gravidae with excess gain (XsG), small gain (SmG), or weight loss (WtL): 11 NWN-XsG, seven NWN-SmG, seven OWN-SmG, two OWN-XsG, three OWN-WtL, and five UWN-XsG. The NWN regression equation between 31 and 40 weeks was: Y = 0.66X - 18.44. Overweight subjects' HSAP values were typically below and underweight subjects' values were above the regression line, providing that the weight gain was not less than normal in the overweight group or greater than normal in the underweight group. The average difference from the NWN regression line for each subject was designated "deltaHSAP." The differences between the mean delta HSAP values was statistically significant for: NWN versus OWN, NWN versus UWN, OWN versus UWN, NWN-XsG versus NWN-SmG, NWN-SmG, NWN versus NWN-XsG, and OWN versus OWN-WtL. The higher delta HSAP values were associated with relative caloric insufficiency, the lower values with relative caloric excess. A low degree of inverse correlation was found between infant birthweight and delta HSAP (r = -0.37; P less than 0.002).

Quantitative microflora of the vagina.

This study enumerated the predominant vaginal flora in 25 healthy patients: 18 prenatal (six with and 12 without gonorrhea) and seven nonpregnant without gonorrhea. All 25 patients had aerobes and 19 of the 25 had anerobes isolated in titers of greater than or equal to 10(5) colony-forming units (CFU per milliliter). The most frequently isolated microorganism was the lactobacillus (aerobic and anaerobic species) followed by C. vaginale, viridans streptococci, anaerobic gram-positive cocci, and Bifidobacterium sp. Bacteroides fragilis was not isolated. There were no significant differences in the frequency of isolation of any specific microorganism or bacterial counts between pregnant and nonpregnant women or between pregnant women with and without gonorrhea (p greater than 0.05), except pregnant patients had significantly higher total facultative counts associated with significantly lower anaerobic lactobacilli counts and higher C. vaginale counts (p less than 0.01) than in nonpregnant patients.