Immune status of pregnant patients especially in possible premature labor

In this study it could be shown that pregnant women having a normal course of pregnancy had significantly higher levels of T-lymphocytes and T-helper cells compared with non-pregnant women. Also other parameters belonging to cellular immune defence showed a similar--in the sense of an improved immune function--trend (even though this was not statistically significant). In pregnant women with symptoms of threatened prematurity significantly lower levels for lymphocytes. T-lymphocytes and T-helper cells were measured than in women who had a normal course of pregnancy. The ratio was also clearly reduced--in those cases where later preterm labour did actually occur it was particularly low at 1.1. In the group of pregnant women with premature labor the number of those who found the situation "very stressful" amounted to 65% and in the group whose course of pregnancy was normal, the percentage was 26%. The results of this study point to the fact that in pregnant women with premature labor the immune function is often impaired and it can be assumed that this provides favourable conditions for ascending infections which then cause a higher risk of prematurity. Further studies should be made concerning the causal connections which we have postulated between physical and psychological overstrains and impairment of the immune function.