A HEMORRHAGIC STATE 

 IN THE VITAMIN E-DEFICIENT FETUS 



OF THE RAT* 



DEFICIENCY of vitamin E in female rats is characterized by death and autoly- 

 sis of the implanted embryo during the second week of gestation, usually 

 between the ninth and thirteenth days. The maternal decidua is at first 

 unaffected but some days later shows regressive changes secondary to the 

 loss of fetal elements. It has been generally accepted that the early fetus 

 succumbs to starvation and asphyxiation, which in turn are secondary to 

 retarded development and rarefaction of mesenchymal derivatives, especially 

 those related to the hematopoietic system (Evans and Burr,^ Urner). The 

 resorptive process can be prevented by administration of adequate vitamin E 

 during the first week or ten days of pregnancy. 



However, when sterile rats are given borderline doses of vitamin E, as in 

 routine bio-assay tests, variable numbers of early resorptions, dead fetuses in 

 difEerent stages of autolysis, and viable fetuses may be observed in uteri ex- 

 amined at laparotomy or at atitopsy during the last third of pregnancy 

 (Mason^*). It appears that fetuses at certain implantation sites escape the early 

 process of resorption but eventually succumb at different periods during the 

 latter part of gestation. Since there exist all gradations between early resorp- 

 tion and viable fetuses, it seemed that an investigation of the nature and causes 

 of fetal death during later stages of pregnancy might afford a better under- 

 standing of the role of vitamin E in fetal development. These studies have 

 revealed the existence of hitherto undescribed abnormalities of the vascular 

 system, associated with late fetal death, the gross characteristics of which are 

 discussed in the present report. 



Fetal Death at the Sixteenth Day of Pregnancy 



Although fetal death has been observed at all stages of late pregnancy, an 

 extensive series of studies concerned with the establishment of new criteria 

 of bio-assay response based upon examination of the uterus at the sixteenth 

 day of gestation (Mason'), and the subsecjuent application of this procedure 

 in assay tests (Mason° and unpublished studies) has afforded an opportunity 

 to examine large numbers of dead fetuses-f- and associated living fetuses at 



* These studies were begun in the Dcpai tintnt of Anatomy of V'andeibilt University School 

 of Medicine, aided by a grant from the Di\ ision of Medical Sciences of the Rockerfeller Foun- 

 dation, and have been continued at the Department of Anatomy, University of Rochester 

 School of Medicine and Dentistry. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Roger Terry 

 and to Mr. Robert PfafI, Student Fellows in Anatomy, University of Rochester School of 

 Medicine and Dentistry, for their valuable assistance and collaboration in these studies. 



f Since all transitions exist between typical resorption sites and sites in which death has 

 just occurred, the term "dead fetus" has been arbitrarily applied only to those implantation 



