Fertility and pregnancy
Down’s syndrome test eliminates miscarriage risk
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A new non-invasive test that examines fetal DNA can pick up genetic abnormalities such as Down’s syndrome and, unlike more intrusive tests that may raise the risk of miscarriage, the new diagnostic tool developed by the US company Ravgen poses no threat to the mother or fetus.
The test uses fetal DNA extracted from blood samples taken from the mother to screen for chromosomal abnormalities, researchers explained. In a preliminary study of 60 pregnant women reported online by The Lancet medical journal the test produced promising results.
Heart drug may improve preterm labor outcomes
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Treatment with transdermal nitroglycerin can prolong pregnancy in women who go into labor prematurely and its use seems to reduce illness in the newborn, a study shows.
While a number of drugs called tocolytics that block uterine contractions can prolong pregnancy, “none have been shown to improve neonatal outcomes,” lead author Dr. Graeme N. Smith, from the Kingston General Hospital in Canada, told Reuters Health.
Oldest woman to give birth may have deceived clinic
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The oldest woman ever to give birth deceived doctors to get the fertility treatment that let her have twins at age 67 last month, a Sunday newspaper said.
Carmela Bousada, who gave birth to twins Christian and Pau on December 29, convinced a Los Angeles clinic she was 55, the cut-off age for their in-vitro fertilization program, the News of the World said.
“They didn’t ask for my age or my passport. I may look tired now but before the births I did look slim and a lot younger,” the newspaper quoted Bousada as saying in an interview.
Quitting Smoking May Be Harder If Mom Smoked During Pregnancy
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Quitting smoking may be more difficult for individuals whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, according to animal research conducted by Duke University Medical Center researchers.
Prenatal exposure to nicotine is known to alter areas of the brain critical to learning, memory and reward. Scientists at the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research have discovered that these alterations may program the brain for relapse to nicotine addiction. Rodents exposed to nicotine before birth self administer more of the drug after periods of abstinence than those that had not been exposed.
Birth defects big cause of infant death
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Birth defects, including heart problems, rather than illnesses associated with premature births are a leading cause of death in very young babies in the United States, according to a report issued on Thursday.
Birth defects, such as a heart condition called pulmonary valve stenosis, are also the most common reason babies are hospitalized, said study researchers, from the University of Arkansas, who examined data on babies under 10 days old.
Prenatal infection may up leukemia risk in child
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A mother who contracts influenza, pneumonia, or a sexually transmitted disease around the time of pregnancy appears to be at increased risk of having a child that will develop leukemia, new research shows.
These observations “suggest that maternal infection might contribute to the develop of childhood leukemia, which has been postulated to have an infectious origin,” Dr. Marilyn L. Kwan, from the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California told Reuters Health.
Prenatal antidepressants seem not to affect child
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The use of antidepressant drugs during pregnancy does not appear to have a significant effect on the behavior of the child, Canadian and Korean researchers report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Dr. Tim F. Oberlander of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and colleagues compared behaviors of 22 children who were prenatally exposed to a selective serotonin uptake inhibitor (SSRI), one of a relatively new class of antidepressant drugs including Prozac and Zoloft, along with 14 unexposed children.
Pakistan promotes birth control to slow birth rate
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Faced with the prospect of its population doubling to over 300 million people in the next 40 years, Pakistan on Thursday launched a project to promote contraception in urban and industrial areas.
“This initiative has the potential for a major breakthrough in our efforts to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice in inculcating responsible parenthood,” Population and Welfare Minister Chaudhry Shahbaz Hussain told reporters in Islamabad.
Infant outcome worse with planned c-section
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Newborns who are delivered via planned cesarean section are more likely to be transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit and to experience lung disorders compared with those delivered via planned vaginal delivery, according to findings published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
“The appropriateness of the rising rate of cesarean delivery worldwide has been debated widely,” Dr. Toril Kolas, of Innlandet Hospital Trust, Lillehammer, Norway, and colleagues write.
Too much fish risky for foetuses
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Pregnant women who eat fish more than three times a week could be putting their baby at risk because of higher mercury levels in their blood, according to a study by Taiwanese researchers.
Mercury exposure is especially risky for foetuses when their internal organs are developing, and can result in neuronal, kidney and brain damage, and stunt growth.
Expectant Chinese mothers tend to eat more fish as they believe it is healthier than red or white meat.
Growth hormone may be halted in puberty for some
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In children previously diagnosed with a deficiency in growth hormone (GH), retesting of GH levels during puberty—and withdrawal of growth hormone therapy if appropriate—does not diminish adult height, a study shows.
“GH treatment can be safely interrupted, in subjects with non-severe GH deficiency, at mid-puberty if GH secretion has proved to be normal,” Dr. Stefano Zucchini from the University of Bologna, Italy told Reuters Health.
He and colleagues retested 69 individuals with GH deficiency at puberty and, if found normalized, left them untreated until the end of growth. Those with persistent GH deficiency continued GH treatment.
Twins prone to early menopause
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The prevalence of early menopause, also known as premature ovarian failure, among identical and fraternal twins is triple that of women in the general population, according to analysis of twin registries in Australia and the UK.
After hearing anecdotal reports about twin pairs having a higher than average rate of premature ovarian failure, Dr. Roger G. Gosden and his associates obtained data for 428 female twin-pairs in the Australian Twin Registry and 404 pairs in the UK Twin Registry.
Roughly half of the twin pairs were identical twins, who share the same DNA, and the other half were fraternal twins, who are as close genetically as other sisters.
African Union adopts reproductive health rights policy
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African Union health ministers meeting in Maputo, Mozambique, last week adopted a policy framework to address sexual and reproductive health and rights but did not agree on how to address the issue of unsafe abortions, resolving to allow each member state to handle the issue separately, Lilongwe’s Chronicle/AllAfrica.com reports.
Thomas Bisika—head of the A.U.‘s Division of Health, HIV/AIDS, Nutrition, Other Related Infection Diseases and Population in the Department of Social Affairs—said all member countries agreed that the majority of the maternal deaths in Africa result from unsafe abortions.
He added that member countries during the meeting emphasized their intent to address the issue based on the social conditions in their countries.
Fertile women dress to impress, U.S. study finds
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Women dress to impress when they are at their most fertile, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study they say shows that signs of human ovulation may not be as mysterious as some scientists believe.
A study of young college women showed they frequently wore more fashionable or flashier clothing and jewelry when they were ovulating, as assessed by a panel of men and women looking at their photographs.
“They tend to put on skirts instead of pants, show more skin and generally dress more fashionably,” said Martie Haselton, a communication studies and psychology expert at the University of California Los Angeles who led the study.
Researchers discover how genes and diet interact to cause birth defects
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Expectant mothers may someday get a personalized menu of foods to eat during pregnancy to complement their genetic makeup as a result of new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Researchers used transparent fish embryos to develop a way to discover how genes and diet interact to cause birth defects.
“By the time most women know they are pregnant, the development of the fetus’ organs is essentially complete,” said Bryce Mendelsohn, co-author and an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine. “Since we currently do not understand the interaction between genetics and nutrition, the goal of this research was to understand how the lack of a specific nutrient, in this case copper, interacts with an embryo’s genetics during early development.”
