Association of maternal and neonatal plasma interleukin-6 levels in relation to model of delivery

Cytokines play an important role during labor of full – or pretern delivery. In umbilical cord blood, Interleukin-6 (IL-6) was thought to be a marker of defense to stress, surgery and infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the cytokine IL-6 concentrations in the mother and neonate depends on the mode of the delivery. This study was done on mothers and neonates in 80 single term deliveries (vaginal and cesarean) in Mahdieh Hospital in Tehran. Age of mothers was 21-39 years old, parity was 1 and 2. There wasnt history of underlying disease and drug usage in mothers and neonate was AGA and apgar was more than 8. There wasnt clinical evidence of infection in neonate and mothers. IL-6 was evaluated by enzyme-immunoassays in maternal serum and neonatal umbilical cord. Data were analyzed with SPSS and were applied fishers exact test for compare means. There were 37 vaginal deliveries and 43cesarean section. The mean (±standard error) of maternal IL-6 concentration in vaginal delivery (0.18±0.02) was significantly (P=0.000) higher than cesarean section (0.1±0.02) and neonatal IL-6 concentration in vaginal delivery (0.17±0.03) was significantly (P=0.000) higher than cesarean section (0.07±0.01). Results show that vaginal delivery cause to increase IL-6 compared to cesarean section in mother and neonate.