TY  - JOUR
T1  - CAN VITAMIN C SUPPLEMENTS PREVENT PREMATURE RUPTURE OF MEMBRANES AND PRETERM BIRTH?
AU  - Pejčić, Ana V.
AU  - Petrović, Nemanja Z.
AU  - Djordjić, Milan D.
AU  - Milosavljević, Miloš N.
PY  - 2025
DA  - July
JF  - Journal of Research in Pharmacy
JO  - J. Res. Pharm.
PB  - Marmara University
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2630-6344
SP  - 6
EP  - 9
VL  - 27
IS  - Current Research Topıcs In Pharmacy: Pharmacology Debates
LA  - en
AB  - Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is an essential water-soluble micronutrient involved in the antioxidant defense mechanisms and synthesis of collagen [1]. It has been suggested that vitamin C could be effective in preventing premature rupture of membranes (PROM) and preterm birth, but previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses had inconsistent results [1-4]. Some found that women supplemented with vitamin C had reduced risk of preterm PROM (PPROM) [1] and term PROM (TPROM) [1], while other found that vitamin C supplementation was not effective in reducing risk of PPROM [3, 4] or preterm birth [1, 3] or, conversely, that it was associated with an increased risk of preterm birth [2]. Considering previous inconsistencies, we aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine if vitamin C supplements could be effective in preventing PROM or preterm birth. We registered our protocol in PROSPERO (CRD42022371644). PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science were searched up to December 21, 2022. Backward and forward citation searching was also performed. We included randomized controlled clinical studies evaluating the efficacy of vitamin C supplementation alone in prevention of PROM or preterm birth in pregnant women in comparison with control group who received placebo or no vitamin C supplementation, and excluded studies in which information needed for calculation of combined effect sizes could not be extracted, calculated or obtained, studies with unavailable full text, conference abstracts, nonrandomized clinical studies and studies in which efficacy of vitamin C in combination with other supplements was evaluated (if both groups received same supplements such study was not excluded). Cochrane Risk of Bias 2 (RoB 2) tool was used to assess risk of bias. Data analysis was performed using Meta-Essentials: Workbooks for meta-analysis (Version 1.5) [5]. Random effects model was used with inverse variance weighting method, while combined effects sizes were estimated using risk ratio (RR) and considered significant only if both 95% confidence interval (CI) did not include 1 and p
KW  - Vitamin C
KW  - premature rupture of membranes
KW  - preterm birth
KW  - prevention
CR  - [1] Rumbold A, Ota E, Nagata C, Shahrook S, Crowther CA. Vitamin C supplementation in pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015; 2015(9): CD004072. [CrossRef]
CR  - [2] Rumbold A, Crowther CA. Vitamin C supplementation in pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2005; 2005(2): CD004072. [CrossRef]
CR  - [3] Souryal A, Galindo M, Roman T, Ireland KE, Ramsey PS, Boyd AR. Vitamin C supplementation and risk for preterm premature rupture of membranes and preterm birth: A meta-analysis. Obstet Gynecol. 2018; 131: 168S-169S. [CrossRef]
CR  - [4] El-Achi V, Aggarwal S, Hyett J. Interventions for the prevention of preterm premature rupture of membranes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Fetal Diagn Ther. 2022; 49(5–6): 273-278. [CrossRef]
CR  - [5] Suurmond R, van Rhee H, Hak T. Introduction, comparison, and validation of meta-essentials: A free and simple tool for meta-analysis. Res Synth Methods. 2017; 8(4): 537–553. [CrossRef]
CR  - [6] Sharma R, Mehta S. Ascorbic acid concentration and preterm premature rupture of membranes. J Obstet Gynecol India. 2014; 64(6): 417-420. [CrossRef]
UR  - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jrespharm/issue//1711577
L1  - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/4925046
ER  -