Renal hemodynamics and volume homeostasis during pregnancy in the rat

The rat is used frequently as a model for normal and abnormal pregnancy, as many of the alterations in renal function and sodium metabolism found in human pregnancy also occur in the rat. In addition, the short gestational period of 3 weeks, a useful parallel of the three trimesters of human pregnancy, makes this animal convenient for laboratory investigations. Thus, it is appropriate to review the renal hemodynamic and fluid volume changes that occur during gestation in the rat. In this review, we have included those experimental studies that we judged to be most relevant to recent physiologic concepts