[Pregnancy-connected hypotension - the influence of mineralo-corticoids on fetal nutrition (author's transl)].

A considerable number of nutritionally deficient newborns are to be expected when over an extended period of time during pregnancy, the mother's bloodpressure readings are 110/65 or below and when no therapy to increase this bloodpressure was administered. We therefore instituted blood pressure raising therapy on a total of 40 pregnant patients with bloodpressure values under 115/70 (25 mg Desoxycorticosteron-trimethylacetate i.m.) even though these patients did not voice any subjective complaints. This treatment resulted in an increased utero-placental perfusion which lead to a significant improvement of the placental perfusion values. Compared with the "fetal outcome" of untreated controls, the infants delivered by patients who had received therapy were considerably heavier at birth and showed almost no signs of prenatal malnutrition. Based on this study we feel that patients although completely free of pregnancy-connected hypotonic complaints (RR 110/65 or below) should be placed on a bloodpressure-raising VASODILATINg therapy for the improvement of fetal nutrition.