Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Calcium and vitamin D supplementation in pre-eclampsia: Analysis of effectiveness and safety

Yanyu Gao , Dan Luo, Qiong Wang, Juan Lin

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chengdu Women's and Children's Central Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China;

For correspondence:- Yanyu Gao Email: yanyugao@yahoo.com Tel:+862861866186

Accepted: 20 April 2021 Published: 31 May 2021

Citation: Gao Y, Luo D, Wang Q, Lin J. Calcium and vitamin D supplementation in pre-eclampsia: Analysis of effectiveness and safety. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(5):1055-1059 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i5.24

© 2021 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of calcium and vitamin D (vit D) supplementation initiated at early pregnancy in high-risk women on reduction of preeclampsia risk.

Methods: This prospective cohort study involved 492 pregnant women who had experienced pre-eclampsia or eclampsia in their current pregnancy (high risk) and were either on calcium (1000 mg/day) as well as vit D (400 IU/day) supplementation at early pregnancy or none. All the included pregnant women received standard doses of calcium (1500 mg/day) and vit D (600 IU/day) supplementation post 20 gestation weeks till childbirth. The primary outcome was pre-eclampsia characterized by hypertension as well as proteinuria.

Results: From March 10, 2015 to February 24, 2018, each of the 246 pregnant women were assigned to the calcium/vit D group versus control group with no calcium/vit D. In the calcium/vit D group, 26.45 % developed preeclampsia compared to 32.11 % in control group with a Risk ratio [RR] of 0.82 (95 % confidence interval [CI], 0.62-1.08; p 0.167). No serious adverse events were related to calcium or vit D.

Conclusion: Calcium/vit D supplementation during early pregnancy did not demonstrate any significant reduction in pre-eclampsia. Large, high-quality studies with higher patient numbers are needed for adequate testing of impact of calcium/vit D on pre-eclampsia.

Keywords: Calcium supplement, Pre-eclampsia, Pregnancy, Vitamin D supplement