Birth Outcomes of Pre-Eclamptic Pregnant Women With Vitamin E Supplementation – A Population-Based Study

Objectives. To study the efficacy of vitamin E supplementation for the reduction of preterm birth/low birthweight newborns in pre-eclamptic pregnant women. Design. Comparison of the rate of preterm birth and low birthweight in pre-eclamptic pregnant women with or without vitamin E treatment. Setting. Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance System of Congenital Abnormalities, 1980-1996. Population. Newborn infants in Hungarian population. Methods. Medically recorded pre-eclampsia and birth outcomes of pregnant women were evaluated. Main outcome measures. Preterm birth, low birthweight. Results. There was no lower incidence of pre-eclampsia after vitamin E treatment. Pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment had a higher rate of preterm births (10.4% vs. 9.3%) and low birthweight newborns (7.8% vs. 5.6%) than the reference sample of 34,928 pregnant women without pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment. The newborns of 936 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and without vitamin E treatment had higher rate of preterm birth (10.4% vs. 8.6%; OR with 95% CI: 0.8, 0.7-0.9) than 81 pregnant women with pre-eclampsia but with vitamin E treatment. However, the rate of low birthweight newborns was somewhat but not significantly higher (8.6% vs. 7.8%; OR with 95 CI: 1.1, 0.8-1.4) in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia and with vitamin E treatment. There was very high rate of threatened abortion (45.7% vs. 15.3%) and threatened preterm delivery (27.2% vs. 13.5%) in 81 preeclamptic pregnant women with vitamin E treatment compared to the reference group. Conclusions. Vitamin E treatment reduced the rate of preterm birth in pregnant women with pre-eclampsia but not the rate of low birthweight newborns.