According to Blackwell, this study is novel because it focuses on pregnancies complicated by various degrees of obesity. Researchers will evaluate the role of blood vessels, fat proteins and other emerging molecules in the development of preeclampsia and gestational diabetes; explore the relationship between preeclampsia and gestational diabetes; and assess the association between a decrease in vaginal bacteria and preterm birth.

Blackwell and his team will follow non-obese and obese pregnant women with chronic hypertension and without diabetes, non-diabetic pregnant women with chronic hypertension with or without obesity, healthy obese pregnant women and healthy non-obese pregnant women. Participants will be followed from their first trimester through six weeks post-partum and researchers will assess changes in the metabolic parameters and blood vessel function of the mother, as well as changes in fetal growth.

Beginning April 1, participants will be recruited from physician's offices and prenatal clinics that deliver at Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center. The grant is in collaboration with The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and George Saade, M.D., professor and director of maternal fetal medicine at UTMB. The four-year award comes from the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development's Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research.

Source: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston