Progesterone Levels During Pregnancy

Progesterone is a hormone secreted by the ovaries during the second half of a woman’s menstrual cycle. But when a woman is pregnant, this hormone starts getting produced in large quantities because it has to assist in preparing a woman’s uterus for pregnancy. Progesterone is actually produced by the corpus luteum in the ovaries and later on, it is preserved by the placenta. When the pregnancy is about to conclude, a drop in progesterone levels helps in initiating labor. Thus, a check on its level at various stages of pregnancy helps in knowing the health of the fetus.

 

The role of the progesterone hormone is to help in the construction of the lining of the pregnant lady’s uterus, in which the fertilized egg will get embedded. This particular hormone is also necessary for the growing fetus’s circulation, where it will get transformed in the adrenal glands to corticosteroid hormones. There is significant difference in the progesterone level in a woman’s body prior and after pregnancy.

Approximately, a pregnant female will have 10 times more progesterone (10 ng / ml during the first few weeks) in her blood. The level of progesterone will increase steadily in a woman during the entire pregnancy. So it’s not uncommon for doctors to request a woman to get her progesterone level checked during pregnancy. A progesterone test is considered important because it helps to examine the health of the placenta as well as the ovaries during pregnancy.

A progesterone test is done to confirm the level of the hormone in the blood.  However, a low level of progesterone may indicate the likelihood of a physical sign of miscarriage in a pregnant woman sometime during the initial 12 weeks. In such cases, some practitioners inject progesterone to increase its level in the expecting woman’s blood in order to prevent a miscarriage. But this may not prove to be of much real help.

 

High Progesterone Level during Pregnancy 
Unusually high progesterone levels in the blood may indicate that the lady could give birth to twins or more. At the same time, this could also signify a molar pregnancy. A molar pregnancy happens when there are some abnormalities in the fertilized egg during conception. The fertilized egg either never develops into an embryo (complete mole) or develops abnormally and can't survive (partial mole).