[Malnutrition, plasma proteins and immunoglobulins in Chilean puerperal women]

Healthy lying-in women admitted to the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile, most of them belonging to the low socioeconomic of Santiago (Chile), showed a steady decrease in the plasma levels of total protein, albumin, beta-globulin, IgA, and IgM, and also a striking increase in the plasma level of alpha 1-Globulin. This trend was ascertained from december 1982 to august 1985, and the pattern of plasma protein change is similar to that found in human malnutrition. The observed changes in the immunoglobulins levels suggest a different behavior between IgM and IgA that do not cross the placenta and IgG that crosses it.