I think that's probably precisely the list of questions they're asking now that they've figured out that this is happening. :)

The data just show that these changes are occuring. Given what we know about outcomes in PE women with induction as opposed to Caesarean, I don't guess it would really change management in that respect. By that I mean that probably induction would still be preferred, so we could avoid having to recover from surgery *too* -- because the data show that outcomes from the two methods are pretty equivalent IIRC.

But it *might*, in the long run, point in the direction of some other clinical intervention that could quiet our symptoms somewhat, which would be lovely.

Interesting!! Do you know if they know what (if any) impact the difference in SOD activity might have on mom & baby -- is this more of a symptom / indication of PE, or something that could in turn affect other factors in labor? (I'm scientifically challenged, and not having much luck understanding the abstract or the links I'm pulling up with google searches!)

In this study, we showed that the reported decrease for SOD activity in PE may be attributed to SOD1 in absence of labor. Also, this is the first study characterizing specific SOD isoforms according to the mode of delivery. We demonstrated in PE that labor upregulates SOD1 in fetal membranes as well as SOD2 and SOD3 in the whole placenta...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20226522

So labor does some stuff to us that it doesn't do to normal pregnant women, and that doesn't happen to us if we don't go into labor. SOD stands for "superoxide dismutase", a tissue antioxidant. The researchers will take a look at this specific change in the chemicals produced by the placenta to see if it suggests a theraputic change in clinical practice might be possible.

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