The Magnesium Story in Pregnancy-Levels in Maternal and Cord Blood-Correlation with Pregnancy Outcome

Introduction: Magnesium (Mg) is the second most abundant intracellular cation, and is vital for a multitude of cellular functions and enzymes. Derangement of Mg homeostasis often leads to various diseases such as, Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and Insulin Resistance (IR), hypertension, atherosclerosis and depression. In pregnancy particularly, hypomagnesaemia has been associated with preterm delivery and low birth weight. Aim: To measure maternal and cord blood Mg levels at delivery to calculate the prevalence of hypomagnesaemia in pregnancy, and to correlate Mg levels with other maternal and foetal variables at birth. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional correlational study was conducted in a 1000- bedded tertiary care centre in Northern India, and consisted of 110 pregnant women admitted for delivery. Maternal and cord blood was obtained at birth and analysed for serum Mg levels. The normality of continuous data was assessed by the Shapiro-Wilk test. Pearson’s correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between continuous variables. Comparison of means of different groups was done by using unpaired t-test. A p-value