Scientists Are Trying To Solve Problems Surrounding The Challenges Of Being Pregnant At High Elevations
In 1545, Spanish colonizers established a mining town named Potosí in what is now Bolivia. It was located more than 13,000 feet high.
Indigenous people were successfully raising families, but couples of European descent, who were not used to life at high altitude, could not conceive a single child for decades.
At high elevation, there is thin air, which contains less of the oxygen that fetuses need for their development. Only about one-seventh of the oxygen that the mother breathes in is redirected to the placenta. The placenta consumes 40 percent of it and then passes on the rest to the fetus.
Now, scientists are striving to learn more about the challenges of pregnancy at high elevation and determine what can be done to help women who are struggling to provide enough oxygen to the fetus.
Mothers not genetically adapted to living at high altitude may not receive enough blood flow redirected to the placenta.
For example, Indigenous Bolivian women living at over 11,800 feet had higher blood flow and babies of a higher birth weight than people of European descent at similar altitudes.
Smaller babies face a greater risk of death in infancy and a greater risk of several diseases later in life, including hypertension, diabetes, and sudden cardiac death.
Identifying the genetics behind adaptations to high elevation may offer important clues. A protein called AMPK may contribute to these adaptations. It helps control and conserve the amount of energy available to the cell.
A 2014 study found that Bolivian women at high altitude who possessed two copies of a certain variant of the gene coding for AMPK gave birth to babies that were 20 percent heavier.
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Researchers are also looking at mitochondria, the organelles in our cells that convert energy from fats and sugars.
The biochemical reactions that occur in mitochondria produce molecules that can lead to tissue damage. When oxygen is lacking, the mitochondria generate more of these molecules, which could explain long-term damage to the fetus.
In pregnant rats, antioxidants like vitamin C have been shown to decrease the risk of cardiovascular issues in offspring that were born from low-oxygen conditions.
Applying this concept to human pregnancies could have consequences, though, as it may not work in the same way.
So, Kim Botting, a physiologist at University College London, and colleagues from the University of Cambridge are investigating an antioxidant called MitoQ.
The mitochondria takes it up, where it will help reduce the production of molecules that are believed to boost the risk of cardiovascular disease in later life.
Hopefully, MitoQ can prevent damage without lessening the fetus’s ability to increase blood flow to the brain. In experiments with sheep, the birth weight of lambs born from ewes in low-oxygen conditions and treated with MitoQ was indistinguishable from that of ewes kept under normal conditions.
“We’d suggest that MitoQ may be an appropriate clinical intervention to diminish hypoxia-induced cardiovascular disease,” Botting concluded.
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