Having an epidural during labour may protect key muscles and therefore cut the risk of incontinence in later life, a study of nearly 400 women suggests.
Research in the BJOG, the leading obstetrics journal, found more than one in ten women who had vaginal births suffered damage to the “levator” muscles which hold up internal organs.
via BBC News.
When doctors detect preterm labor its often too late to do anything about it. Premature births are often only delayed a few days. Biomedical researchers at Johns Hopkins University however, are developing a new system to help physicians detect preterm labor. “If labor can be detected earlier, medications can sometimes prolong the pregnancy by as much as six weeks,” says researcher, Karin Hwang. “We estimate that the cost savings could be more than $44,000 per patient for every preterm birth we could prevent”
via Change.org.
Mothers who find breastfeeding so hard that they give up should not blame themselves, researchers say.
A Norwegian study concludes that difficulty feeding a newborn may be down to higher levels of the male hormone testosterone during pregnancy.
via BBC News.
Pregnant Arab women have an “extraordinarily high prevalence” of vitamin D deficiency — a potential health issue for them and their babies, according to a new Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center study.
The vitamin deficiency is largely due to how Arab women dress outdoors — preventing exposure of the skin to sunlight and subsequent vitamin D intake, according to Adekunle Dawodu, M.D., a physician in the Center for Global Child Health at Cincinnati Children’s and lead author of the study.
via Science Daily. Thanks to levelsofillusion for pointing out this article to me.
Women who drink during pregnancy may be damaging the future fertility of their sons, research suggests.
In a study of almost 350 young men, sperm levels were a third lower in those whose mothers had drunk more than four drinks a week during pregnancy compared with teetotallers.
via BBC News
[A Study group is] calling for greater consensus among neonatologists about best practice for pre-term babies after uncovering a “lottery” in the way in which infants were treated.
Out of the 264 cases reviewed, there were delays in recognising the need for artificial feeding in a third of cases, and further delays in starting treatment once a decision has been taken.
In nearly 40% of cases, the first feeding provided was considered inadequate for the baby’s need. Complications, it found, were avoidable in a fifth of the babies treated.
via BBC News
Novel approaches are increasingly employed to address the social determinants of health of children world-wide. Such approaches have included complex social programs involving multiple stakeholders from different sectors jointly working together (hereafter Child Health Partnerships).
…
There was evidence of success in several major areas from the formation of effective joint operations of partners in different partnership models to improvement in both child wellbeing and parenting. There is emerging evidence that Child Health Partnerships are cost-effective. Population characteristics and local contexts need to be taken into account in the introduction and implementation of these programs.
via Pubmed Central
Breast-feeding seems to provide an immune system boost to infants, helping to prevent respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses in babies, according to new research.
Babies who were breast-fed exclusively for four months, and then partially until they were six months old, had a reduced risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections compared to babies who had never been breast-fed, the Dutch team found.
via Health24
The two researchers found that the largest share of adverse reactions (42%) was reported for psychostimulants (such as Ritalin), followed by 31% for antidepressants (such as Prozac) and 24% for antipsychotics (such as Haldol) . A number of ADRs were reported for Danish children below 2 years, probably due to the mother’s intake of psychotropic medicine, primarily antidepressants and antipsychotics, during pregnancy. Serious ADRs such as ‘neonatal withdrawal syndrome’, ‘ventricular septal defects’ and ‘premature labour’ were reported. According to Aagaard, “Considering the higher number of birth defects being reported greater care has to be given while prescribing these drugs for pregnant women.”
via Medical News Today.
Pregnant women with thyroid function test results in the upper half of the normal range have an increased chance of miscarriage, even when they lack thyroid-harming antibodies, according to a new study. The results, which the authors say show the need to change screening practices for pregnant women, will be presented at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting, ENDO 2010, in San Diego on June 22 by Alex Stagnaro-Green, M.D., senior author and senior associate dean for education at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
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