Effect of acute Maternal hydration on amniotic fluid volume in women with normal and with decreased amniotic fluid index

Abstract

This study was conducted at the department of Obstetrics and

Gynecology at Assiut University Hospital from 116/1999 to 1/2/2001.

It aimed at constructing a normogram for amniotic fluid index in pregnant women in our locality describing amniotic fluid index trends throughout the second and third trimesters of gestation and defining the mean and the percentile values for each gestational week in part I of the work. In part II, we aimed at testing the effect of acute intravenous maternal hydration on amniotic fluid index in women with normal and with decreased amniotic fluid index.

Part I was designed to be a cross sectional study in which two hundred seventy eight women (singleton pregnancy, reliable date, normal pregnancy and between 24-42 weeks) were examined sonographically to evaluate their amniotic fluid indices using the four-quadrant technique. The amniotic fluid index observations were transformed into logarithmic base value and analyzed with polynomial regression equation. Amniotic fluid index observations are stratified into gestational week segments. Thus, we are able to determine the 1Oth, 50th and 90th percentiles for each gestational week. Part II of the work was designed to be a blinded randomized trial in which acute intravenous maternal hydration (2 liters of isotonic saline 0.9% over 2 hours) was given to thirty women with norn1al amniotic fluid volume and to thirty women with oligohydramnios. Amniotic fluid index, hematocrit and urine specific gravity values are determined before and four to six hours after the hydration to detect the difference between post-treatment and pre-treatment values (referred to as