Magnesium sulfate, a compound used in the treatment of constipation, can prevent cerebral palsy in premature babies and other at-risk newborns, informs the EurekAlert website.
Such conclusions were reached by scientists from the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel and from the University of California in Los Angeles, on the basis of studies on pregnant rats in which inflammation in the body was induced a few days before the birth of their offspring.
Inflammation, e.g. associated with infection of the pregnant woman or the fetus, is one of the risk factors for cerebral palsy. This term is used to describe brain damage that occurs during the fetal period, during or shortly after birth. It leads to movement and coordination disorders, e.g. paralysis or paresis of various parts of the body or involuntary movements. It can also cause a delay in mental development, speech development, behavioral disorders and seizures.
There may be several causes of brain damage, and it is also difficult to determine exactly in what period of a child’s life it occurred. It is estimated that 50 percent. cases it is the period of fetal life, while in premature babies in as much as 90%. it happens during childbirth.
The factors that increase the risk of cerebral palsy in a child include: poisoning or infection during pregnancy, alcohol abuse by a pregnant woman, difficult childbirth with complications, during which the baby develops hypoxia and ischemia, bleeding into the brain in premature babies, early childhood meningitis or head injuries.
As the authors point out, magnesium sulfate is sometimes used in preterm labor to reduce the risk of damage to the baby’s brain. In 2010, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists together with the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine issued an opinion based on available scientific evidence that magnesium sulfate administered before pre-term labor reduces risk of cerebral palsy in children.
In their latest work, an Israeli-American team wanted to show that magnesium sulfate can protect the brain of premature babies due to inflammation in the mother’s body or her own.
For this purpose, they conducted studies on pregnant rats, which were injected with a compound called lipopolysaccharide (LPS) about 3 days before the birth of their offspring. It is a component of the outer cell membrane of some bacteria (the so-called gram negative) and may be the cause of an inflammatory process. Instead of the toxin, some of the females were administered harmless saline (control group).
Two hours before and after the injection, some mothers received magnesium sulfate and others received saline, a placebo.
Baby rats were born naturally, and when they grew a bit older, their brains were examined using magnetic resonance imaging. The images of the brains obtained in this way were analyzed in three dimensions. White matter nerve fiber organization was checked using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging.
Researchers observed that the offspring of females who received LPS had lesions in the white and gray matter of the brain (e.g., the corpus callosum, thalamus, and hippocampus). However, it turned out that magnesium sulfate prevented these changes. Children of mothers who, apart from bacterial toxin, were administered this compound had a similar brain structure to rats from the control group.
According to the authors of the study, this indicates that administering magnesium sulfate to pregnant women may be the most effective method of preventing brain damage in babies born prematurely due to inflammation in the mother’s or her own body.
In the future, more research will be needed to better understand how magnesium sulfate works and how it protects the fetal brain, comments one of the authors of the study Ron Beloosesky.
Scientists reported on the results of their research at the Society’s Annual Meeting of Mother and Fetal Medicine, held in February in San Francisco. (PAP)