Childbirth News and Research

Latest Childbirth News and Research

Religious, cultural issues affecting efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, U.N. report says

Inter Press Service recently examined a report released by the United Nations Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa last week at the U.N. 2008 High Level Meeting on AIDS.

17 Jun 2008

Misoprostol off-label use may have led to deaths

Preliminary U-M studies indicate that oral use of RU-486's companion drug misoprostol is safe, but vaginal use may undermine body's immune responses

16 Jun 2008

Society's attitudes have little impact on choice of sexual partner

A unique new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institute (KI) suggests that the attitude of families and the public have little impact on if adults decide to have sex with persons of the same or the opposite sex. Instead, hereditary factors and the individual's unique experiences have the strongest influence on our choice of sexual partners.

16 Jun 2008

Antibiotics can prevent wound complications of childbirth

A single dose of antibiotics can significantly aid healing of the severe tearing that occurs in vaginal tissues during many births, according to researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, the Stanford University School of Medicine and Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. The study is the first to show that the simple treatment can prevent many of the short- and long-term repercussions of this relatively common complication of childbirth.

9 Jun 2008

Florida Governor signs health care bill that allows insurers to sell bare-bones health plans

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) on Wednesday signed into law a bill that will allow the sale of low-cost, bare-bones health insurance policies, the New York Times reports (Sack, New York Times, 5/22).

25 May 2008

Senator Moore to discuss health care reform at ACNM 53rd Annual Meeting

Senator Richard T. Moore will speak at the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) 53rd Annual Meeting & Exhibit on Sunday, May 25, 8:15 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. As a member of the influential Joint Committee on Health Care Financing in the Massachusetts General Court, Senator Moore is constantly in the forefront of issues affecting the health of the people of Massachusetts.

20 May 2008

Too much or too little weight gain poses risks to pregnant mothers, babies

Women who gain more or less than recommended amounts of weight during pregnancy are likely to increase the risk of problems for both themselves and their child, according to a new report by the RTI International-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Evidence-based Practice Center.

7 May 2008

Chemical in plastic baby bottles worrying Brits

Concerns raised by scientists in the U.S. last month about Bisphenol A, a controversial chemical found in most plastic baby bottles has led to calls from groups in Britain for all baby bottles to be clearly labelled.

7 May 2008

Impact of round-the-clock, rapid oral fluid HIV testing of women in labor

Can HIV transmission in pregnancy in low income settings be prevented with round the clock rapid testing in labor?

6 May 2008

Soaring rates of pregnant women with diabetes

According to the latest research from the U.S. the number of pregnant women with diabetes has more than doubled in the last six years.

28 Apr 2008

Some moms quit cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol during pregnancy, but dads don't

Despite public health campaigns, a surprising number of women continue to use substances such as tobacco, marijuana and alcohol during pregnancy and their usage rebounds to pre-pregnancy levels within two years of having a baby, according to a new University of Washington study.

24 Mar 2008

Guidelines for von Willebrand disease diagnosis and management

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health today issued the first clinical guidelines in the United States for the diagnosis and management of von Willebrand Disease (VWD), the most common inherited bleeding disorder.

4 Mar 2008

Depression linked to subsequent pregnancy in black teens

African American adolescent mothers who have symptoms of depression may be more likely to have a subsequent pregnancy within two years of giving birth, according to a report in the March issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

4 Mar 2008

New guidelines for von Willebrand disease

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, has issued the first clinical guidelines in the United States for the diagnosis and management of von Willebrand Disease (VWD), the most common inherited bleeding disorder.

1 Mar 2008

Most maternal deaths worldwide are preventable

A study published in PLoS Medicine this week suggests that of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa, more may die from treatable infectious diseases than from conditions directly linked to pregnancy.

20 Feb 2008

Over 30% of pregnant American women have C-sections

The proportion of American women having their babies delivered by C-section jumped to nearly one in three in 2005, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

17 Feb 2008

Some cases of autism may be traced to the immune system of mothers during pregnancy

New research from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and Center for Children's Environmental Health has found that antibodies in the blood of mothers of children with autism bind to fetal brain cells, potentially interrupting healthy brain development.

12 Feb 2008

Breastfeeding now safer for infants of HIV-infected mothers

An antiretroviral drug already in widespread use in the developing world to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their newborns during childbirth has also been found to substantially cut the risk of subsequent HIV transmission during breast-feeding.

4 Feb 2008

Twenty five babies tested for rare TB in Melbourne hospital scare

Following the birth of a premature baby in a Melbourne hospital late last year with a rare form of tuberculosis (TB), blood tests are being carried out on 25 babies who were also in the hospital at the time of his birth.

22 Jan 2008

Extra-hepatic manifestation of hepatitis C virus infection

In 1994, the team of Tchernev and Petrova from Alexandrovska Hospital in Sofia examined a female patient with liver cirrhosis caused by chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

17 Jan 2008