Mineral and Bone Mass Changes During Pregnancy and Lactation

BEATRIZ OLIVERI; MURIEL SOLANGE PARISI; SUSANA ZENI; CARLOS MAUTALEN

NUTRITION

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

Año: 2004 vol. 20 p. 235 - 240

0899-9007

INTRODUCTIONDuring the past decade many factors have come together to producean explosive increase in investigations on bone and mineralmetabolism during pregnancy and lactation. Among some populations,frequent pregnancies and long lactation periods may leadto severe skeletal damage in the mother.1 For example, a case ofsevere after birth osteoporosis in a 30-y-old woman was describedin 1948 in the classic book by Albright and Reifenstein.2In the past decade, however, technology improvements havemade it possible to quantify accurately the biochemical changes inbone formation and resorption markers and alterations in bonemass that occur within the different skeletal areas during a woman’sreproductive life.Likewise, the past decade has witnessed the eruption of descriptionsof clinical cases in which the mother develops severeosteoporosis at the end of pregnancy or during the lactation period.Further, there is a growing need to determine whether pregnancyand lactation may become risk factors for the future developmentof postmenopausal bone fractures.Several reviews,3–7 including some that specifically examinedreproductive bone health and as its relation to osteoporosis,8 andothers addressing the possibility of avoiding possible deleteriouseffects by increasing calcium intake9–11 have been publishedrecently.The objective of this article is to review recent advances inbone changes that occur during pregnancy and lactation, withspecial emphasis on calcium balance and calcium needs duringthese periods of a woman’s reproductive life.