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.
An article in a magazine for new mothers that described breastfeeding as “creepy” has drawn widespread criticism.
Mother & Baby Magazine’s deputy editor Kathryn Blundell said she bottle fed because she did not want to put her “fun bags” in a “bawling baby’s mouth”.
via BBC News.
Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen says that all mothers should be made to breastfeed their babies for the first six months of their lives.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she said: “I think breastfeeding really helped [me keep my figure].
via BBC News.
Pregnant women in the UK should be told to routinely take vitamin D supplements, researchers say.
The team at University College London Institute of Child Health says official bodies currently offer conflicting advice.
Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition, they say there is a “strong case” for a daily dose of vitamin D in 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
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
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