Melatonin as an adjuvant therapy in gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia: A randomized controlled trial

TL;DR

This study shows melatonin may help reduce complications in pregnant women with high blood pressure disorders.

Contribution

Melatonin is shown to reduce serious pre-eclampsia and improve fetal outcomes in a randomized controlled trial.

Findings

Melatonin reduced the need for cesarean section due to severe pre-eclampsia.

Melatonin lowered the rate of proteinuria and intrauterine death.

Melatonin improved maternal and fetal outcomes in hypertensive pregnancies.

Abstract

In spite of the improvement of obstetric care, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy have continued to emerge as the major causes of
maternal and perinatal morbidity. Therefore, it is of interest to assess the effectiveness of melatonin as an adjuvant treatment in
the management of gestational hypertension and pre-eclampsia in 404 pregnant women (183 taking melatonin and 221 taking standard care)
in one of the tertiary care hospitals in India. Melatonin group also showed much lower incidences of serious pre-eclampsia that
necessitated cesarean section (2.73% vs 8.60, p=0.014), lower rate of proteinuria (28.42 vs 37.10), and a better fetal outcome with a
lower incidence of intrauterine death (4.92 vs 9.50). Melatonin supplementation is a potential adjuvant treatment that is promising to
decrease the maternal and infant complications in pregnancy-related hypertension disorders.