Increased blood flow to the uterus during pregnancy is essential to the health of both mother and baby
But the cellular processes that promote blood flow during pregnancy aren’t fully understood
Now, researchers have discovered that fat surrounding blood vessels in the uterus plays a key role
In pregnant rats, uterine blood flow was up to 3 times higher than in non-pregnant rats
But blood flow plummeted when fat tissue was removed from the uterus of pregnant rats
Interestingly, tests on isolated vessels demonstrated that fat tissue-shrinking factors could be at play
which seems counterintuitive because narrow vessels generally mean low blood flow
One explanation is that isolating tissue from its natural surroundings could produce changes not observed in a live animal
Future studies will explore this apparent contradiction and hopefully reveal the role of fat tissue in human pregnancy
Osikoya et al. "Uterine Perivascular Adipose Tissue Is A Novel Mediator of Uterine Artery Blood Flow and Reactivity in Rat Pregnancy" J Physiol (2019)