Prevention of toxemia of pregnancy in Ecuadorian Andean women: experience with dietary calcium supplementation.

Pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH) is a significant cause of low birth weight and maternal and neonatal death around the world. This article reviews work indicating that dietary calcium supplementation can sharply reduce the PIH incidence among pregnant women whose regular diet is calcium-poor. It also describes physiologic conditions prevailing during pregnancy that could explain calcium's major role in PIH--as well as supplemental calcium's great potential for preventing PIH among people with low-calcium diets.