Pregnancy News and Research

Latest Pregnancy News and Research

Doctors failing to identify smoking in adolescents

Doctors are failing to identify smoking status in about half of the adolescent patients seen, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study.

24 Jun 2004

Minimally invasive procedure provides new childbirth hope

Beauty therapist, Jo Anastasio, who suffers from an extremely rare blood vessel abnormality, was told that she couldn’t have children and that her only option was a hysterectomy.

21 Jun 2004

Exposure to excess hormones in the womb increases risk of heart disease and diabetes

Babies exposed to excess hormones in the womb are not only at increased risk of developing heart disease and diabetes in later life but can pass these risks to their children.

17 Jun 2004

Prediction of the age of menopause and hence a woman's reproductive prime

UK researchers have shown a strong direct relationship between ovarian volume and the number of primordial follicles (eggs) remaining in the ovaries of women of reproductive age.

16 Jun 2004

Couples with higher education and earnings more likely to marry

Both economic and interpersonal factors play a role in the likelihood that unwed parents will marry by their child's first birthday, according to an article published in the latest issue of the journal Demography.

16 Jun 2004

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes, or high blood sugar, that only pregnant women get

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes, or high blood sugar, that only pregnant women get. If a woman is found to have high blood sugar when she's pregnant, but she never had high blood sugar before, she has gestational diabetes.

15 Jun 2004

Public awareness campaign in Northern Virginia on sexual coercion and statutory rape

The Virginia Department of Health will sponsor a public awareness campaign in Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Roanoke in June and July to help reduce sexual coercion and statutory rape.

15 Jun 2004

African-American women less likely to survive breast cancer than white women

A new study led by investigators at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center may help explain why African-American women with breast cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease and are less likely to survive the disease than white women.

15 Jun 2004

Prenatal factors may play a role in autism

Mothers of children diagnosed with autism are more likely to be older and to have experienced obstetric difficulties during pregnancy, labor and delivery, but these complications are likely related to underlying genetic factors, according to an article in the June issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

14 Jun 2004

Research shows there is no substitute for reliable birth control

US research published (Thursday 10 June) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction suggests that a single act of unprotected intercourse is more likely to lead to an unwanted pregnancy than was previously believed.

12 Jun 2004

World Blood Donor Day

The world today honours voluntary blood donors for their priceless contribution to their communities. However, while celebrations take place in many cities around the world, numerous patients and trauma victims in those same cities will be dying or suffering unnecessarily because of a shortage of blood.

11 Jun 2004

Virginia Health urges women of childbearing age to take folic acid

According to data from a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January 2004, only 35 percent of Virginia women of childbearing age take a vitamin pill that contains folic acid.

11 Jun 2004

The once youngest person in the world to survive a heart by-pass operation is expecting her 2nd child

Lorraine Stone was born with heart disease. When just three days old she was the youngest person in the world at that time to survive a heart by-pass operation. Since then she has had five major heart operations. Miraculously, at the age 29, she is expecting to give birth to her second child in July.

10 Jun 2004

Project aimed at eliminating anthrax as a potential weapon for terrorists

La Trobe University scientists are using their own unique peptide 'library' containing a thousand million molecular sequences in a project aimed at eliminating anthrax as a potential weapon for terrorists.

10 Jun 2004

AMA urges government to scrap Parental Access To Information Bill

The Bill would allow parents and guardians access to HIC information about children under 16 years of age [currently access is allowed for children under 14] – even if the children have their own Medicare cards.

10 Jun 2004

Genetic link between hormones and migraine

Director of the Genomics Research Centre Professor Lyn Griffiths and her team of researchers at Griffith University have identified a genetic link between hormones and migraine.

9 Jun 2004

Changing practices may raise African American women's breast cancer risk

A new study finds African American women derive similar breast cancer risk reductions associated with multiple births and breastfeeding as white women, but that recent trends may lead to a rising risk.

7 Jun 2004

HIV infection impairs immunity to malaria in pregnant women

"Scientists from the University of Melbourne, Australia, the United States and Malawi studying infections with malaria and HIV, have found a strong link between the two diseases, which affect millions of people around the world and are major scourges in sub-Saharan Africa.

7 Jun 2004

Australian scientists have developed a tool that acts as a pregnancy test for the detection of anthrax

Once a deadly disease associated with animals, anthrax is now used as a bioterrorist weapon. While infection can be controlled with antibiotics, in a bioterrorism attack people will not know they have been infected until symptoms develop, at which stage drugs are useless.

7 Jun 2004

Cervical cerclage, stitching to close cervix called into question

A common surgical procedure to prevent the cervix opening during pregnancy-thought to reduce the risk of preterm delivery-is called into question by results of a study in this week's issue of THE LANCET.

5 Jun 2004