Pregnancy is associated with increases in maternal cardiac output and plasma volume and a reduction in peripheral vascular resistance. Cardiac output and plasma volume are substantially reduced in pregnant rats fed a low-protein diet, but it is not known whether vascular function is also compromised. We have investigated vascular function in virgin and pregnant Wistar rats subjected to dietary ...

context: normal pregnancy is associated with sodium and water retention, which results in plasma volume expansion prior to placental implantation. the explanation offered for these events is that pregnancy ‘resets’ both volume and osmoreceptors. evidence acquisition: the mechanisms for such an enigmatic ‘resetting’ in pregnancy have not previously been explained. however, recent human pregnancy...

The foetus is an allograft in the uterus. Yet it is not rejected by the immunocompetent mother. Understanding of the exact mechanism of foetal survival is limited and the unequivocal evidence still seems elusive. It is proposed that one of the possible reasons for evasion of maternal lymphocyte-mediated lysis by the foetus could be local inactivation of serine proteases, secreted on the target ...