[Prolactin in amnionic fluid and serum of women in early pregnancy (author's transl)].

Transvaginal amniocentesis performed in 257 women in the first trimester of pregnancy produced 99 samples of the amnionic fluid. Prolactin was determined in all samples of the amnionic fluid and in the serum of all pregnant women. In the amnionic fluid there were very small amounts of prolactin in the early days of pregnancy, from 5 to 6 weeks. Prolactin values remained the same, in spite of large individual oscillation, up to the 11th week of pregnancy. After 11th week of pregnancy the content of prolactin rapidly goes up, so that in the 15th and the 16th week it reaches its mean value of 1183.43 micrograms/l. In the serum of pregnant women prolactin exceeds the value of the luteinic phase (outside pregnancy) only in the 7th week, although in some women examined it remains below these values up to the 13th week. After the 13th week there is a slow, linear increase of serum prolactin with the advance of pregnancy. No significant correlation was found between prolactin values in the amnionic fluid and the serum of pregnant women.