Effects of vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy on female rats reproductive function
WEI Zhenzhen, CHEN Weiwei, WANG Lei, YU Xiaodan
MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200092, China
Abstract：Objective To study the effect of vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy on the function of reproduction of SD rats. Methods Twenty-four 8-week-old SD female rats, weighting 200-220 g, were divided into two groups randomly: control group and vitamin D deficiency group. The rats in control group were fed control forage, and those in vitamin D deficiency group were fed forage without vitamin D. After 4 weeks, female rats were caged together with male rats. Serum vitamin D levels were measured on the 11th day of pregnancy by LC-MS-MS, and reproduction experiments were carried out after childbirth. Results The maternal serum vitamin D levels of vitamin D deficiency group were significantly lower than those of the control group. The serum vitamin D levels in control group were (22.65±2.50) ng/mL，and those in vitamin D deficiency group were (6.65±1.86) ng/mL(P<0.05). In the vitamin D deficiency group, the number of live births per litter was significantly decreased (8.90±4.47 in vitamin D deficiency group and 12.63±2.98 in control group). By contrast, the number of stillbirths per litter was significantly increased (2.10±1.93 in vitamin D deficiency group and 0.00±0.00 in control group). Conclusion Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy can impair reproductive function.
