Strengths and Limitations
Our study described the longitudinal change in serum TG from pregnancy
to 42 days postpartum, and particularly focused on the postpartum
outcome of TG elevation in gestation, making up for the missing part of
existing studies that only studied during pregnancy. Our study was the
first to find that TG level at 42 days postpartum was positively
associated with gestational TG, and presented that gestational TG can be
a predictor of postpartum hypertriglyceridemia. Considering that TG
changes continuously from pregnancy to postpartum, we also got down to
the positive associations between TG time trend of change throughout
gestation and postpartum TG level and hypertriglyceridemia, which took
into account the time variation and scientifically reflected the
association.
At present, there is no consensual recommended reference values of
maternal serum lipids during pregnancy. We innovatively found four TG
cutoff points at four gestational week that involved all three
trimesters, which gave clinical significance to epidemiological analytic
study, and provided a referable guidance on blood lipid control for
pregnant women.
Another light spot of the study was that we compared the postpartum TG
outcomes in pregnant women with different pre-BMI and between women with
and without GDM. We were amazed to find that the risk of gestational TG
to postpartum health is even greater for normal women. The results were
supposed to aware pregnant women of pre-BMI, blood glucose and lipid
control, for the sake of their postpartum lipid health.
There were still some limitations in the present study. For instance,
the follow-up visit was up to 42 days postpartum, for lack of subsequent
trace. Lifestyles of pregnant women including dietary structure and
physical activity that could be important factors for serum TG level is
needed to be considered during pregnancy and postpartum.