STUDIES ON THE IMMUNOSUPPRESSIVE ROLE OF STEROID-HORMONES DURING PREGNANCY

It has been recognised that steroids can exert a profound influence over immunological reactivity. The present study analyzes the role of steroid hormones - estrogen, progesterone and cortisol - and their involvement in immunoregulation during pregnancy. As is known, the endogenous levels of all the three hormones increase during pregnancy. When the steroid levels in pregnancy serum were correlated with the lymphocyte response to mitogen, no correlation was observed. The suppressive effect of pregnancy serum was found to have no correlation with its steroid content. In general, steroids did not seem to affect the maternal immune system as evidenced by the present study.