A STUDY OF THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF MATERNAL AND FETAL ADRENAL GLANDS OF RATS1,2

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
DURING pregnancy in the human (Venning, 1946; Tobian, 1949; Devis and Devis-Vanden Eeckhoudt, 1949; Jailer and Knowlton, 1950; Lloyd et al., 1952) or in the experimental animals, (Anderson and Sperry, 1937) secretory activity of the adrenal cortex of the mother appears to be high. Little is known about the activity of the fetal adrenal cortex and the interrelationships of maternal and fetal adrenals have not been widely studied. Firor and Grollman (1933) observed that adrenalectomized pregnant albino rats survived twice as long as nonpregnant controls. Ingle and Fisher (1938) found an increase in weight of the fetal adrenals if the maternal adrenals had been removed during the pregnancy. Adrenalectomized pregnant rats delivered their litters normally, but did not lactate sufficiently to raise them unless treated with cortical hormones (Tobin, 1939). Walaas and Walaas (1944) confirmed the findings of Ingle and Fisher and showed that fetal adrenal weight increased 33% if maternal adrenals were removed on the 16th day of gestation.