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Assessment of thyroid function during pregnancy: first‐trimester (weeks 9–13) reference intervals derived from Western Australian women
Author(s) -
Kennedy Richard L,
Malabu Usman H,
Porter David
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2009.tb02357.x
Subject(s) - library science , medicine , computer science
Gilbert and colleagues report thyroid function test results in a large number of pregnant women in Western Australia during the first trimester. While assessment of thyroid status is increasingly important in pregnancy, they do not present a strong enough argument for their reference ranges to be adopted. Their controls consisted of only 100 blood donors, and it is not clear whether these were age-matched with patients. Differences between pregnant and non-pregnant thyroid hormone ranges were too small to justify use of separate ranges. We assume from the article that the controls were not screened for thyroid antibodies. Prevalence of thyroid autoimmunity is high in women of reproductive age, whether or not they are pregnant.