Links studied between preterm pregnancy and kidney dysfunction

A blood test could be used to screen women for kidney dysfunction, giving them an idea of how likely they are to have a pre­term birth.

A cheap blood test could be used to screen women for kidney dysfunction, giving them an idea of how likely they are to have a pre­term birth and address the associated risks.

A Canadian study of almost 56,000 pregnancies in the province of Ontario found a higher rate of preterm birth for women with kidney dysfunction compared with those who had normal kidney function.

Women with kidney dysfunction had a preterm birth — before 37 weeks — 9 per cent of the time. Seven per cent of women had a preterm birth if they had normal kidney function. A common method used to determine how well kidneys function is a test which measures the level of creatinine in blood. Creatinine is produced by the body’s muscles when creatine — an energy source for muscles — breaks down.

Almost all creatinine is filtered by the kidneys, so it is a useful measure of how well they are working.

Abnormally elevated prepregnancy serum creatinine was defined in the study as a measurement above the 95th percentile. The research showed “the primary outcome of preterm birth before 37 weeks was more frequent among women with prepregnancy serum creatinine above the 95th percentile”. The risk of severe preterm birth at or before 32 weeks was about doubled in women with kidney dysfunction.

According to the research report, “mild prepregnancy kidney dysfunction”can lead to “placental dysfunction” which can lead to a severely small foetus and preecclampsia.

The researchers concluded kidney dysfunction is relatively easy to establish via an inexpensive blood test.

“Given that measurement of serum creatinine is a readily available and inexpensive blood test, there may be a role for screening potentially high-risk women for kidney dysfunction,” they wrote.