The effect of maternal smoking on the homeostasis of the fetoplacental unit

Maternal smoking causes serious health danger for a mother but especially for a baby. Cigarette smoking produces complex steroidogenesis changes during the whole life of a woman. To study the influence of smoking on fetoplacental unit focusing on steroid hormons it was important first to concentrate on changes of the chosen steroids around the delivery. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to observe some chosen steroid hormons in peripartal period (37th week of the pregnancy, first stage of labor of mothers and mixed umbilical blood of their neonates) and to look for relations to the age of mother, the increase of the weight during the pregnancy, the type of the delivery and the sex of the baby. It was interesting to compare steroids in the relation to the type of the delivery: vaginal delivery versus planned caesarean section. Non-smoking women who delivered a boy spontaneously had significantly higher level of 17-OH-pregnenolone, progesterone, cortisol, corticosterone and significantly lower level of estradiol in comparison with non-smoking women who delivered a boy by a planned Caesarean section. In the maternal blood in the 37th week of the pregnancy there were found differences between steroids in accordance to the sex of the fetus but they were not found in the neonates' case. The age..