Surfactant appears in amniotic fluid at the gesta?tional age of :
Ans. is b i.e. 32 weeks Friends, I had to search a lot for this answer but all in vain. Only Nelson Paediatric throws some light on this issue : "Pulmonary surfactant is a heterogenous mixture of phospholipids and proteins secreted into the saccular or alveolar sub-phase by the type ll pneumocytes. Its presence is first recognised in characteristic secretory organelles known as lamellar bodies as early as the 24th week of gestation. However, surfactant lipids of which the most abundant is phosphatidyicholine, are not detectable in the amniotic fluid until the 30th week of gestation, suggesting that there is a chronologic gap between surfactant synthesis and secretion. Labour probably shoens this gap because phospholipids are consistently found in the air spaces of infants born before the 30th week of gestation." From the above lines it is clear : Surfactant synthesis occurs in 24th week of gestation, it appear in amniotic fluid in 30th week of gestation. Since 30 weeks is not given in options, I would personally go with 32 weeks, when surfactant will absolutely be detected in amniotic fluid, whereas at 28 weeks it can detected only if preterm labour occurs.
20 weeks
32 weeks
36 weeks
26 weeks