Preparing for pregnancy in women is a very serious matter that requires scientific treatment. Progesterone is a hormone secreted by pregnant women, which can treat threatened miscarriage. Therefore, many women who experience threatened miscarriage after pregnancy actively take progesterone to prevent and treat threatened miscarriage. Is it okay to take progesterone before pregnancy?
Is it okay to take progesterone before pregnancy
It should be noted that excessive progesterone is harmful to pregnancy, and insufficient progesterone is also not acceptable. Only within the normal range is it safe. If progesterone is taken unnecessarily, it can be harmful to one's health. Therefore, during the preparation period for pregnancy, it is important not to randomly take anything that should not be used. Only in this way can we ensure a smooth pregnancy and the healthy development of the baby after conception.
What is the function of progesterone
（1） Progesterone inhibits uterine contractions
Some people believe that progesterone can alter the permeability of the uterine muscle cell membrane to ions, causing the membrane to be in a hyperpolarized state, thereby reducing the excitability of the uterine muscle and decreasing its sensitivity to various stimuli, especially oxytocin. Therefore, the pregnant uterus will not undergo severe and progressive contractions, the embryo will not be affected, and the pregnancy can be maintained. Based on this, progesterone is commonly used in clinical practice to protect the fetus.
Some people hold the opposite view, believing that although the experiment proves that progesterone inhibits uterine muscle excitation, it is an in vitro condition and the dosage used in the experiment far exceeds physiological concentration. In addition, when treating threatened miscarriage, using double-blind method, it was found that progesterone had the same effect as placebo.
（2） Progesterone maintains decidual response
Demoulding cells are formed by the transformation of endometrial stromal cells and contain glycogen granules that provide nutrients to the fetus. And in the experiment of using immune beam to release serum, it was found that it can cause miscarriage in pregnant mice, indicating the importance of decidua in maintaining pregnancy.
Removing the bilateral ovaries of animals with pseudopregnancy induced decidua reaction can lead to decidua necrosis and liquefaction; If exogenous progesterone is administered, it can prevent decidual degeneration. Progesterone is essential for maintaining the decidual response.
（3） Progesterone inhibits immune response
The fertilized egg is a 'semi allogeneic transplant', but why is it not immune rejected by the mother during implantation?
It has been found that when certain tumor cells are transplanted into the uterine cavity of animals, only in animals injected with progesterone, the tumor cells are not rejected and implant into the uterine wall, indicating that progesterone can inhibit immune responses. Similarly, it can be explained that during normal pregnancy, an increase in progesterone can prevent the embryo from being rejected by the mother and maintain pregnancy. If progesterone is insufficient, the embryo will act like a foreign body and be rejected by the mother, resulting in miscarriage.
In short, progesterone is essential for maintaining pregnancy, hence it is called the "pregnancy" hormone. Regardless of its mechanism of maintaining pregnancy, it must bind to the receptors of its target tissue, namely endometrial cells, in order to have an effect. The synthesis of progesterone receptors is mainly promoted by estrogen. Therefore, the action of progesterone always relies on the cooperation of estrogen; Moreover, estrogen can stimulate the synthesis and secretion of progesterone in the corpus luteum of the ovary.
Taking progesterone before preparing for pregnancy depends on the situation. If you are a woman preparing for pregnancy, it is best to take timely measures to avoid the occurrence of threatened miscarriage. In fact, there are many reasons for threatened miscarriage, not necessarily due to progesterone deficiency. Supplementing progesterone must be scientific and not taken for granted.
