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Newly discovered role of thyroid hormone during pregnancy

Thyroid hormone deficiencies in early pregnancy can cause locomotor underdevelopment in the child, according to research from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet.

21 Feb 2008

Drinking milk may help women lower risk for hypertension

Women who drank more fat free milk and had higher intakes of calcium and vitamin D from foods, and not supplements, tended to have a lower risk for developing hypertension or high blood pressure, according to a new study published in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension.

21 Feb 2008

How childhood abuse affects adult health care use and costs in women

Middle-aged women who suffered physical or sexual abuse as children spend up to one-third more than average in health-care costs, according to a long-term study of more than 3,000 women.

20 Feb 2008

Poor women more likely to suffer from postpartum depression

Poor women in Iowa are much more likely to suffer from postpartum depression than their wealthier counterparts, a new University of Iowa study shows.

20 Feb 2008

More support needed for menopausal women in rural areas

Good social support and reliable information are essential for women who find menopause an intense and life-altering experience, especially if they live in rural areas where health services are patchy or inaccessible.

20 Feb 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

Young women not getting enough folic acid

Despite the fact that folic acid can prevent some of the most common birth defects, young women aren't getting enough of it.

18 Feb 2008

Stress may increase a woman's risk of developing cervical cancer

A woman's daily stress can reduce her ability to fight off a common sexually transmitted disease and increase her risk of developing the cancer it can cause, according to a new study.

18 Feb 2008

Personalized medicine can cut breast cancer risk

The time has come for breast cancer risk assessment, counseling and genetic testing to move from cancer specialists to the realm of primary care, according to a presentation at the AAAS annual meeting, held this year in Boston.

17 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

Scientists discover why some breast cancers are drug resistant

Research by British scientists has revealed how cancer cells which have a faulty gene can become resistant to treatment.

13 Feb 2008

Blood test detects early stage ovarian cancer with 99 percent accuracy

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have developed a blood test with enough sensitivity and specificity to detect early stage ovarian cancer with 99 percent accuracy.

13 Feb 2008

Accuracy of online breast cancer information

A new study has found that one in twenty breast cancer web pages contained inaccurate information, and that web sites devoted to complementary or alternative medicine were fifteen times more likely to have false information.

12 Feb 2008

Benefit of removal of the ovaries differs between women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations

The surgical removal of the ovaries has been widely adopted as a cancer-risk-reducing strategy for women with either BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.

12 Feb 2008

Study explains preeclampsia develops

In a study of pregnant women, those with pregnancy-induced high blood pressure were found to have higher levels of a peptide that raises blood pressure in the pieces of tissue linking mother and fetus, according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

11 Feb 2008

Women and smoking

A study carried out at the Department of Anthropology of the University of Granada has examined, both at a quantitative and a qualitative level, the reasons for the increase in the use of cigarettes among women experienced in Spanish society during the last 50 years.

8 Feb 2008

Hot flashes may be getting an unfair rap for disrupting women's sleep at midlife

Studies have often reported that sleep problems increase during the transition into menopause, reinforcing the idea that hot flashes are to blame. But even under controlled conditions in sleep laboratories, the connection between hot flashes and sleep disruption remains unclear, reports the February 2008 issue of Harvard Women's Health Watch.

8 Feb 2008