A 30 year old woman with gestational diabetes came with true labor pains at 30 weeks of gestation. The woman is given glucocoicoid therapy. Prenatal steroid therapy is given to

Coisol induces differentiation and maturation of type II alveolar cells. During late gestation, these cells produce surfactant, which reduces surface tension in the lungs and thus allows the onset of breathing at bih. Lung maturity of the fetus can be gauged by determining the ratio of DPPC to sphingomyelin, usually written as the L (for lecithin)-to-S ratio, in amniotic fluid. A value of two or above is evidence of maturity because it reflects the major shift from sphingomyelin to DPPC synthesis that occurs in the pneumocytes at about 32 weeks of gestation.