Urinary Sodium Chloride in Pregnancy

Abstract

My attempt in the gross study of the urinary sodium chloride concentration in pregnant women as compered with that of apparently normal women was to determine if there was any change in the excretion of this electrolyte in pregnancy which will account for the edema so often present in most pregnant women, and also to correlate this finding with others such as albumen and blood pressure which will indicate a deviation from a normal pregnancy into a pregnancy which may terminate in one of the toxemias. | My main object was to see if by using this short method it was possible to make it routine in all pregnant women and thus determine early what patients should be placed in a low salt diet and in this way be able, perhaps, to prevent them from going into a pre-eclamptic state. | There was no control in the patients studied and the method used to determine the urinery sodium chloride was a crude method, but one which gave an approximate estimate of its concentration in the urine. | I recognize that with no control of the patients and with the wide variation in the use of the salt shaker at the table, it is hard to evaluate the findings. Nevertheless, these patients, picked at random, represent a part of the whole picture and give and[sic] idea of what may be true in a greater population. | If we consider this small group as a representative of a greater group, and if what is true in the group examined is true in the other cases, we may be able to get and idea of the whole picture. I realize definite conclusions cannot be arrived at with so little evidence, but this might be a miniature of the whole portrait.