Pregnancy News From Med News Today
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Mums Say NHS Maternity Services Are Good In Biggest Ever Survey, UK
posted on 11/27/07Mothers have praised the good quality of care provided by NHS maternity services in a survey published today (Tuesday) by the Healthcare Commission. But the results also highlight specific areas of concern and wide variations between trusts in responses to questions about postnatal care, communication, food and cleanliness. Responses came from 26,000 women who gave birth in January and February 2007, making it the largest survey ever of maternity experience. [click link for full article]
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BJOG Release: Smoking Obscures Tests For Down Syndrome, UK
posted on 11/26/07New research published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology shows that women smoking during the first stage of pregnancy affects the levels of chemicals in the blood that are used for Down syndrome screening, and this could lead to misleading results. Researchers from Saudi Arabia carried out tests on 2, 337 fit and healthy first-time mothers in the first trimester of pregnancy, from 2001 - 04. [click link for full article]
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Is The Test Tube Conception Dangerous?
posted on 11/25/07The number of "infants from a test tube" is growing year by year, and in highly developed countries it will soon make 1% to 3% of all new-borns. [click link for full article]
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Vitamin B Deficiency In Pregnant Mothers Linked To Diabetes
posted on 11/23/07Babies whose mothers do not get enough essential B vitamins around the time of conception could be more at risk of Type 2 diabetes.A study of female sheep showed that reducing their intake of B12 and folate (a form of vitamin B9) before pregnancy produced major physical effects in their offspring.At only two years of age, the sheep showed signs of insulin resistance and were 25 per cent fatter than normal with higher blood pressure. [click link for full article]
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MIT: Prenatal Arsenic Exposure Detected In Newborns -- Research Could Lead To Test For Screening Populations For The Poison
posted on 11/22/07MIT researchers have found that the children of mothers whose water supplies were contaminated with arsenic during their pregnancies harbored gene expression changes that may lead to cancer and other diseases later in life. In addition to establishing the potential harmful effects of these prenatal exposures, the new study also provides a possible method for screening populations to detect signs of arsenic contamination. [click link for full article]
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Smoking Before And After Pregnancy Harms Daughters' Fertility
posted on 11/22/07Researchers have identified the chemical pathway by which a mother's smoking before and after pregnancy might reduce her daughter's fertility by as much as two-thirds. Cigarette smoking during pregnancy has been shown in studies to affect the fertility of a woman's offspring, but this is the first study to offer an explanation of the biology behind the effect, the scientists claim. [click link for full article]
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Smoking May Affect Fertility Of Female Offspring
posted on 11/22/07Smoking during pregnancy has many adverse effects on fetal development. A new study in mice by Andrea Jurisicova and colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, now adds the possibility that smoking before pregnancy or while breast-feeding might substantially decrease the fertility of female offspring to the long list of possible negative outcomes. [click link for full article]
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Antenatal HIV
posted on 11/22/07South Africa's Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Programme has severe shortcomings that could be doing more harm than good. HIV patients are missing out on opportunities to receive a key intervention namely the nevirapine tablet according to a study published in the online open access journal AIDS Research and Therapy. [click link for full article]
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Hazardous Advanced Micro Devices ('A.M.D.') 'Clean Room' Chemicals Allegedly Caused Multiple Birth Defects
posted on 11/21/07Advanced Micro Devices ("A.M.D.") and a regional medical association that claims to treat 15 percent of Austin-area residents are responsible for multiple birth defects in an Austin youth born with a missing lower right arm and lifelong cognitive deficits, according to a lawsuit filed in Travis County District Court. The youth's mother, a former A.M.D. "clean room" employee, was wrongfully exposed to birth defect-causing hazardous chemicals during her pregnancy. A.M.D. [clic
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CMS Will Reimburse Louisiana For Prenatal Care Provided To Pregnant Noncitizens
posted on 11/19/07CMS will reimburse Louisiana for 80% of the costs of providing prenatal care to noncitizen pregnant women through SCHIP, according to agency spokesperson Mary Kahn, the Baton Rouge Advocate reports (Shuler, Baton Rouge Advocate, 11/15). The state expanded [click link for full article]
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National Marrow Donor Program(R) Commends New American Medical Association Guidelines For Umbilical Cord Blood Donation
posted on 11/19/07The National Marrow Donor Program(R) (NMDP) commends the nation's largest physicians' association for new guidelines that could help increase the number of pregnant women who donate umbilical cord blood for potentially life-saving transplants. [click link for full article]
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Schmidt-Nielsen Mentor/Scientist Award Won By Joey P. Granger, Ph.D.
posted on 11/18/07The American Physiological Society (APS; http://www.the-aps.org/) has announced that it has presented its prestigious Bodil M. Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award to Joey P. Granger, Ph.D., of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. [click link for full article]
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Lack Of Well Being In A Pregnant Woman May Lead To Premature Delivery
posted on 11/17/07A group of researchers of the University of Modena has investigated the role of psychological well being in premature delivery. The study is reported in the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.The aim of this study was to evaluate how sociodemographic factors, psychosocial adaptation to pregnancy and well-being levels are associated with the onset of preterm uterine contractions allowing symptomatic preterm labor. [click link for full article]
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Fetal Heart Rate Yields Clues To Children's Later Development
posted on 11/16/07Variations in heart rate patterns provide information on how the nervous system functions in adults and children. Obstetricians have long considered heart rate patterns to be important indicators of fetal well-being during the prenatal period as well as in labor and delivery. Now a new study has found that heart rate patterns before birth also predict the rate at which children develop through their toddler years. [click link for full article]
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Grantees Of The Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Prevention Research Initiative Gather In Houston To Report Interim Findings
posted on 11/16/07Eighteen scientists investigating novel means for primary prevention of breast cancer by studying the natural impact of pregnancy on breast tissue met at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston on Monday, November 12, 2007 to share interim findings. All are part of the unique Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Prevention Research Initiative, one of many Avon Foundation funded programs seeking new directions in breast cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure. [click link for full article]
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Novel Placenta Screening Tests May Help Prevent Stillbirths
posted on 11/16/07The development of new screening tests based on better understanding of normal and abnormal placenta function may be crucial in reducing the incidence of stillbirths, according to a Seminar in The Lancet, this week's edition. Professor Gordon Smith, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Cambridge University, UK, and Dr Ruth Fretts, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, looked material published since 1997 while preparing for the Seminar. [click link for full article]
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November Issue Of Reproductive Health Matters Focuses On Maternal Mortality
posted on 11/15/07Reproductive Health Matters and Elsevier are pleased to announce the publication of the November Issue devoted to the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative launched by the World Health Organization in 1987. The November issue responds to the question - Is Pregnancy Getting Safer for Women? The answer is yes - and no. [click link for full article]
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Does Prenatal Binge Drinking Harm The Developing Fetus? Evidence Is Scarce
posted on 11/14/07The evidence that binge drinking during pregnancy harms the developing fetus is very limited, according to an article published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (BMJ). There is clearer evidence that regular heavy drinking during the pregnancy is linked to a higher risk of birth defects. However, what impact binge drinking might have, without heavy regular drinking, is unclear, write the authors. [click link for full article]
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Even Slightly Premature Babies Are At Higher Risk Of Death In First Week Of Life
posted on 11/13/07Babies born just a few weeks premature are six times more likely to die during their first week of life, than full-term babies, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Pediatrics. [click link for full article]
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Lack Of Maternity Leave And Workplace Discrimination Bad For Pregnant Women's Psychological Health
posted on 11/12/07Lack of access to maternity leave and workplace discrimination is contributing to poor mental health in pregnant women according to a new study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published by Wiley-Blackwell. [click link for full article]
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HIV Drug Resistance Risk In Mothers Reduced By Combination Of Common Drugs
posted on 11/12/07New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows that adding a single dose of two common anti-HIV drugs can prevent HIV-positive pregnant women from developing resistance to an entire class of drugs, potentially improving future treatment options. [click link for full article]
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Combination Of Common Drugs Reduces Risk Of HIV Drug Resistance In Mothers
posted on 11/12/07New research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) shows that adding a single dose of two common anti-HIV drugs can prevent HIV-positive pregnant women from developing resistance to an entire class of drugs, potentially improving future treatment options. [click link for full article]
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HIV-Positive Pregnant Women Who Receive Tenofovir, Emtricitabine During Childbirth Have Decreased Risk Of Developing Drug Resistance, Study Says
posted on 11/09/07HIV-positive women who are pregnant and receive the antiretrovirals tenofovir and emtricitabine during childbirth could reduce the risk of developing resistance to antiretroviral drugs, according to a study published Wednesday in the Lancet, AFP/Yahoo! News reports (AFP/Yahoo! News, 11/7). [click link for full article]
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Tenofovir/Emtricitabine Reduces HIV Viral Resistance In Pregnant Women Given Nevirapine For Perinatal HIV Prevention
posted on 11/08/07Single-dose tenofovir and emtricitabine at delivery reduces HIV-viral resistance to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor drugs (NNRTIs) in women given intrapartum nevirapine for perinatal HIV prevention. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article published early Online and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet. [click link for full article]
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BJOG Release: New Study On The Causes And Treatment Of Major Obstetric Haemorrhage
posted on 11/08/07A new study published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology examines current practice in the management of major obstetric haemorrhage during childbirth. Over 500,000 women worldwide die each year as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. Whilst maternal mortality in developed countries such as the UK is relatively low, a leading cause of severe maternal morbidity in developed countries remains major obstetric haemorrhage. [click link for full article]
