Maternal Health News and Research

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Results-Based Financing for Health can get 20% more health care with same funds

Countries and major donors are changing the way they finance maternal and child, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS health programs in low-income countries to increase their impact.

11 Dec 2013

Depression during pregnancy may affect child's mental health

Depression is a serious mental illness that has many negative consequences for sufferers. But depression among pregnant women may also have an impact on their developing babies.

4 Dec 2013

Multivitamin supplements can reduce incidence of pre-eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia is a serious complication of pregnancy that currently affects 6-8% of all pregnancies in Australia. Griffith Health Institute researchers have recently found that multivitamin supplements, including those that contain selenium, can reduce the incidence of PE, especially for overweight mothers.

27 Nov 2013

Professor receives March of Dimes Agnes Higgins Award for research on maternal-fetal nutrition

A researcher who showed that what a woman consumes during pregnancy may increase her baby's risk of developing a birth defect will receive the March of Dimes Agnes Higgins Award for outstanding achievements in the field of maternal-fetal nutrition.

4 Nov 2013

Breast milk purchased over Internet contained bacteria that can cause illness in infants

Results from a study led by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital found more than three-fourths of breast milk samples purchased over the Internet contained bacteria that can cause illness, and frequently exhibited signs of poor collection, storage or shipping practices.

21 Oct 2013

Researchers find 5-fold increase in high cholesterol risk

What leads to high cholesterol? Your genes and lifestyle factors may not explain it all. A study presented today at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress has connected some of the risk for high cholesterol in adults to their mother's cholesterol levels before she even became pregnant.

17 Oct 2013

Babies born to moms who smoked when pregnant have increased risk of nicotine addiction in adulthood

Adult women whose mothers had increased levels of stress hormones while they were pregnant are at greater risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, according to a new study led by a Miriam Hospital researcher.

8 Oct 2013

Pregnant women with BMI too high or low are more likely to have maternal complications

Pregnant women with a body mass index (BMI) that is too high or too low are more likely to have maternal complications, require additional hospital care and incur higher medical costs, according to a new study published today (18 September) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

18 Sep 2013

Life expectancy gap growing between older women in rich and poor countries: Study

Measures taken in developed countries to reduce noncommunicable diseases - the leading causes of death globally - have improved the life expectancy of women aged 50 years and older over the last 20 to 30 years.

2 Sep 2013

Dieting before getting pregnant not enough to prevent diabetes risks

Bethesda, MD-While there is never a bad time to address one's own obesity, if you're hoping to lose weight before conception for the sake of your child, here's some bad news: Some of the epigenetic damage might have already been done, even if you lose the weight just before conception.

30 Aug 2013

Augmentation during childbirth appears to be linked with increased odds of autism

An analysis of North Carolina birth and educational records suggests that induction (stimulating uterine contractions prior to the onset of spontaneous labor) and augmentation (increasing the strength, duration, or frequency of uterine contractions with spontaneous onset of labor) during childbirth appears to be associated with increased odds of autism diagnosis in childhood, according to a study by Simon G. Gregory, Ph.D., of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C., and colleagues.

13 Aug 2013

University of North Carolina receives $8M grant to improve maternal and infant health

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a five-year, $8 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve maternal and infant health and save the lives of mothers and infants in Malawi by strengthening the President's Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood Initiative (SMI).

11 Jul 2013

Study shows female obesity may reduce receptivity of uterus to embryo implantation

An analysis of almost 10,000 first cycles of egg donation treatment at one of Europe's largest IVF centres shows that female obesity reduces the receptivity of the uterus to embryo implantation and thereby compromises reproductive outcome.

10 Jul 2013

Growth patterns in 2 months old infants help predict child's weight by age 5

Infants as young as two months old already exhibit growth patterns that can predict the child's weight by age 5, according to researchers at Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and Tennessee State University.

11 Jun 2013

Report highlights successes in improving maternal health, reducing child mortality

Rapid expansion of programs to prevent HIV transmission to babies and vaccinate children show how results can be achieved in relatively little time.

1 Jun 2013

Researcher studies how families, social networks and society affect expecting mothers in Greenland

Greenlandic families expecting a baby, often feel safest when care supports cultural elements such as being near to family, home environment and local traditions.

14 May 2013

Child marriage increases risk for maternal and infant mortality, study reveals

Countries in which girls are commonly married before the age of 18 have significantly higher rates of maternal and infant mortality, report researchers in the current online issue of the journal Violence Against Women.

14 May 2013

PBS blog features stories looking at mobile technology and health in Africa

PBS's "Rundown" blog features two stories as part of the "Cheers Report," a "series of reports on the impact of mobile technology and health in 10 African countries."

30 Apr 2013

Women with HIV who breastfeed exclusively longer than 4 months have lower risk of transmitting virus to infants, study shows

"The amount of HIV in an infected mother's breast milk spikes when weaning begins, according to a study published [Wednesday] in Science Translational Medicine," Nature reports.

19 Apr 2013

Focus on early childhood critical to new development framework

"UNICEF's latest report [.pdf] on child nutrition, launched at the Dublin Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, Climate Justice hosted by the Mary Robinson Foundation and Irish Government, revealed that every year 2.3 million children under the age of five still die of malnutrition and 165 million children are stunted as a result of not receiving enough nutritious food within the first 1,000 days of life," British Member of Parliament Ivan Lewis, the shadow secretary of state for international development, writes in a Huffington Post U.K. "Politics" opinion piece.

17 Apr 2013