الفهرس 
Introduction and Review of LiteratureOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The present study involved two integrated aspects. The first aspect has dealt with investigating the possible toxic side effects of maternal and prenatal exposure to one of the glucocorticoids through maternal administration of betamethazone during the organogenesis phase of embryonic development i.e. from the sixth to the 15th day of gestation in female Wister rats and their fetuses. However, the second aspect examined the possible ameliorative role of curcumin against the toxicity induced by betamethazone administration. The targeted organs were the liver, kidney and skeletal muscles for the mothers and the liver, kidney and endoskeletone for their fetuses. Six integrated approaches, namely, morphological, skeletal, histoligical, histo-morphometric, ultrastructural and molecular were utilized.
1- Morphological investigation: This involved investigating the body weight of mothers, morphology of uteri, percentage of resorption, mortality rate of fetuses and the external features of fetuses. The investigation revealed that administration of betamethazone led to severe reduction in body weight of mothers, increase in the resorption and mortality rate and severe intrauterine growth retardation as it affected the growth parameters of the fetuses including reduction in fetal weight, length and volume. There was a high frequency of malformations in the skin, head, trunk, limbs and tail of fetuses of betamethasone group. However, the fetuses of the group injected with both betamethazone and curcumin group exhibited marked improvement in terms of body weight of mothers, resorption and mortality rate, shape, size and length of fetuses.