Is high progesterone good?

As we all know, progesterone plays a very important role for female friends. Female friends are prone to low progesterone symptoms during pregnancy. The appearance of such symptoms can easily affect the development of the fetus. Therefore, we recommend that female friends pay attention to their progesterone. However, some female friends have symptoms of high progesterone. So is high progesterone a good thing or a bad thing?

(1) Progesterone inhibits uterine contractions

Some people believe that progesterone can change 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 at the same time reducing the sensitivity of the uterine muscle to various stimuli (especially oxytocin). Therefore, the pregnant uterus does not undergo violent and progressive contractions, the embryo is not affected, and the pregnancy is maintained. Based on this, progesterone is commonly used in clinical practice to maintain pregnancy.

Some people hold the opposite opinion, believing that although the experiment proves that progesterone inhibits the excitement of uterine muscles, it is an in vitro condition and the dose used in the experiment far exceeds the physiological concentration. In addition, in the treatment of threatened abortion, progesterone was found to be as effective as placebo using a double-blind method.

(ii) Progesterone maintains the decidual response

Decidual cells are transformed from endometrial stromal cells and contain glycogen granules, which provide nutrition to the blastocyst. Injecting pregnant mice with "rabbit anti-mouse decidua serum" can cause miscarriage, indicating the importance of decidua in maintaining pregnancy. Removal of both ovaries of animals with pseudopregnancy decidual reaction can cause necrosis and liquefaction of the decidua; if exogenous progesterone is given, decidual degeneration can be prevented. It can be seen that progesterone is necessary to maintain the decidual reaction.

(III) Progesterone suppresses immune response

The fertilized egg is a "semi-allogeneic transplant" (Semiallograft), but why is it not rejected by the mother's immune system when it implants? Some people have found that when certain tumor cells are transplanted into the uterine cavity of animals, the tumor cells are not rejected and implanted into the uterine wall only in animals injected with progesterone, indicating that progesterone can inhibit the immune response. By the same token, during a normal pregnancy, the increase in progesterone can prevent the embryo from being rejected by the mother and maintain the pregnancy. If there is insufficient progesterone, the embryo will be rejected by the mother as a foreign body, resulting in miscarriage.

In short, progesterone is necessary to maintain pregnancy, so it is called "pregnancy" hormone. Regardless of its mechanism of maintaining pregnancy, it must always bind to the receptors of its target tissue, the endometrial cells, in order to produce its effect. The synthesis of progesterone receptors is mainly promoted by estrogen. Therefore, the effect of progesterone always depends on the cooperation of estrogen; and estrogen can also stimulate the ovarian corpus luteum to synthesize and secrete progesterone.

Progesterone is very important to us. We know that progesterone plays a very important role for pregnant women. If the progesterone level in pregnant women is low, it should be taken seriously. If the progesterone level is high, it also needs proper adjustment. In addition, timely examinations should be carried out in normal times. Do not do some treatments that harm the body. Wait for the progesterone to adjust for normal delivery, and you can become pregnant.