Potential use of bioelectrical impedance analysis in the assessment of edema in pregnancy.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the validity of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) in the assessment of edema in pregnancy.


METHODS
A prospective study of healthy women identified during the first trimester of pregnancy. From a pool of 200 eligible volunteers, BIA was conducted on 90 women during the rest of pregnancy and postpartum period.


RESULTS
The values for bioelectrical impedance in normal pregnant women decreased gradually in the course of pregnancy, whereas a more remarkable decrease in the values was noted in eight patients who developed edema. The bioelectrical impedance (BI) changes correlated closely with body weight changes. There was a strong relation between bioelectrical impedance values and the degree of edema. The precedent decrease of the values before the onset of edema was noted in seven of the eight patients with edema.


CONCLUSIONS
BIA can be a useful and practical method for the early detection and quantitative assessment of edema in pregnant women.
Morita
H
H
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kobe University School of Medicine, Japan.
Takeuchi
K
K
Funakoshi
T
T
Mizutori
M
M
Maruo
T
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017097:Electric Impedance; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011225:Pre-Eclampsia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results