A study has been made of plasma 17-hydroxycorticosteroid (17-OHCS) levels in 120 women during pregnancy, at delivery, and postpartum, including analyses on umbilical cord blood. In 83, there was abnormal tolerance to oral glucose during pregnancy, but there were no clinical manifestations of diabetes mellitus and these women were not known to have been diabetic previously. Forty-one of them were treated with 15 units of NPH insulin daily. No difference in plasma levels of 17-OHCS was found between the controls, the patients with abnormal glucose tolerance who were untreated, and those with abnormal glucose tolerance who were treated with insulin, at any of the various stages in which assays were made, before and after delivery. It was concluded that there is no relationship between plasma levels of 17-OHCS and the presence of abnormal glucose tolerance during pregnancy, and that insulin has no effect on plasma 17-OHCS concentration either in the mother’s blood or in the umbilical cord blood at delivery. The alterations in plasma levels of 17-OHCS in pregnancy, previously noted in the literature, are confirmed.

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