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Pregnancy changes a lot in your blood. Aside from the raging hormones, your blood flow and kidney function take some adjustments. What happens next is it impacts your uric acid level. Truth be told, elevated UA is likely, but it is not typical to see such a result without the usual triggers. Find out the factors that influence uric acid levels as you read on.
Pregnant women often deal with changes in their appetite, which is why unusual cravings, including foods with elevated purines, can happen. Pregnant women often deal with changes in their appetite, which is why unusual cravings, including foods with elevated purines, occur.
Purines are compounds found in various foods. When they break down during digestion, they secrete uric acid(1). Hence, the higher purines you consume, the more uric acid is released.
For instance, eating organ meats, anchovies, sardines, and syrupy drinks (which, by the way, are some of the foods with the highest purines) can elevate your uric acid levels, mainly when done more frequently and in huge amounts.
A Quick Tip: Overconsumption of the foods mentioned earlier may become subjective during pregnancy. Remember that your glomerular filtration rate or GFR increases by 50% maximum, which also translates to how much your kidney works. With these changes in hand, even your pre-pregnancy purine intake can exhaust your kidneys, making it extra challenging to reduce uric acid levels.
There are a couple of routes that lead to elevated uric acid, regardless of whether you’re pregnant or not. First is when you have high purine levels in your body, and second is when your kidneys fail to eliminate a significant level of uric acids due to dysfunction.
Pregnant women with kidney disorders(2) ought to control their blood pressure primarily. Otherwise, their kidney function will significantly decrease while their risk for preeclampsia drastically increases. Preeclampsia is a known condition that can cause premature birth and other complications that jeopardize the health and survival of the mother and fetus.
Also Read: 11 Preeclampsia Risk Factors Every Pregnant Woman Should Know
Uric acid levels can also increase when the placenta doesn’t function as it should.
Oxygen and nutrients are delivered to the growing fetus via the placenta. Thus, if this specialized organ isn’t working properly, it creates a stressful environment(3) that can cause increased cell turnover due to internal cell death. This event leads to cellular breakdown, releasing purines and eventually being reduced to uric acids.
The most common factor that influences placental dysfunction or insufficiency is diabetes. Hence, managing your blood sugar levels (e.g., adopting a suitable gestational diet) during pregnancy becomes more crucial than ever.
Some types of medicines can elevate the uric acid levels in the blood. These medications include water pills or diuretics, low-dose aspirin, and immunosuppressants.
If you’re taking any of these medications, let your obstetrician know. It is not advisable to drop your medications simply because they have this kind of side effect. Ultimately, your doctor will make the final call.
If your uric acid levels during pregnancy go above the normal range, especially around the third trimester, it may lead to complications like pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia(4).
Pregnancy already alters multiple aspects of your organ functions, including hormone secretion, blood flow, and regulation of other critical substances in your body. When uric acid is elevated among pregnant women, it can exacerbate these changes.
The condition, therefore, increases the risk of developing kidney disease and gout. However, the most dangerous consequence of high uric acid in pregnancy remains preeclampsia.
Preeclampsia can range from mild to severe, indicated by the degree of elevation in blood pressure and protein in urine. Severe preeclampsia accounts for over 50,00 maternal and 500,000 fetal morbidities globally(5).
After taking a blood test for serum uric acid, high results may vary depending on the reference value of the test. Commonly, high uric acid in pregnancy is over 240 or 300 µM/L. Some tests use mg/dL as the unit of measurement. In this case, elevated uric acid levels are between 4–5 mg/dL.
Having elevated levels of uric acid in a mother’s body can affect the functioning of blood vessels in both the mother and the fetus. Therefore, the likelihood of preterm birth increases by 2.3 times.
There might be inconsistencies in uric acid during pregnancy, but after carrying to term or giving birth, most women begin to normalize their uric acid. Otherwise, it might indicate some underlying health issues that spike the serum uric acid in the system.
High uric acid is a typical cause of concern, even if you’re not pregnant. But if you learn what causes this condition and how to address it through your obstetrician’s recommendations, you can manage and even prevent the spike.
