Pregnancy News and Research

Latest Pregnancy News and Research

World's largest study of the fear of childbirth

A few women are so afraid of giving birth that they avoid becoming pregnant or seek an abortion, even though they want to have children. This fear is related to several serious conditions such as prolonged labour, a greater need for pain relief during labour and an increased risk of an emergency C-section.

21 Oct 2011

Blood test can help assess severity of preeclampsia in pregnant woman

A blood test can help to assess whether a pregnant woman who suffers from pregnancy-induced hypertension, so-called preeclampsia, is at risk for an imminent delivery.

21 Oct 2011

Women can have successful pregnancy after kidney transplantation

A new study recently published in the American Journal of Transplantation reveals that the ability to successfully carry a pregnancy after kidney transplantation is very high, with 73.5% live birth rates.

21 Oct 2011

Higher diabetes rates in African American women after GDM

African American women who develop gestational diabetes mellitus during pregnancy face a 52 percent increased risk of developing diabetes in the future compared to white women who develop GDM during pregnancy, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published online in the journal Diabetologia.

21 Oct 2011

No unique link between first-trimester ACE inhibitor use and birth defects

Women who take angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors to treat high blood pressure in the first trimester of their pregnancies are at no greater risk of having babies with birth defects than are women who take other types of high blood pressure medication or who take no blood pressure drugs, according to a new study from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

21 Oct 2011

Weill Cornell researcher to study link between obesity, inflammation and breast cancer

Funded through Bloomingdale's annual Pink Campaign, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) is awarding a grant to Dr. Andrew J. Dannenberg of Weill Cornell Medical College on Oct. 26 to fund research into the link between obesity, inflammation and breast cancer. Dr. Dannenberg has been a BCRF grantee since 2004.

21 Oct 2011

Mortality rate from homicide, suicide more common in pregnant and postpartum women

Violent deaths are outpacing traditional causes of maternal mortality, such as hemorrhage and preeclampsia, and conflicts with intimate partner are often a factor, researchers report.

21 Oct 2011

Abortion news: Indiana Planned Parenthood faces challenge from state; other states limiting options

Indiana officials contend the state's Planned Parenthood chapter could end a fierce legal dispute over abortion funding by simply separating its abortion business from other services. But advocates for the organization view the idea as a red herring pushed by critics seeking to entirely defund the country's largest abortion provider. Their skepticism is fueled by experiences from Planned Parenthood chapters in two other states where non-abortion services were targeted even after such a split.

21 Oct 2011

State roundup: Md. program poised for health reform; Calif. high-risk pool; huge insurance premium jump in La. district

Its accountable care organizations will be called coordinated care organizations. And, instead of just aiming to cut costs and increase the quality of care, Oregon wants to actually grade them.

21 Oct 2011

A more accurate blood test to detect fetal Downs syndrome launched

Pregnant mothers in the U.S. who wish to know whether they're carrying a fetus with Down syndrome now have access to a commercial genetic blood test that has a 99 per cent accuracy rate.

20 Oct 2011

Study explores how internet message boards help women after pregnancy loss

Nearly one in six pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth, but parents' losses are frequently minimized or not acknowledged by friends, family or the community.

20 Oct 2011

American Academy of Pediatrics expands guidelines on safe sleep for babies

Since the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended all babies should be placed on their backs to sleep in 1992, deaths from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome have declined dramatically. But sleep-related deaths from other causes, including suffocation, entrapment and asphyxia, have increased.

19 Oct 2011

Viewpoints: CLASS decision ends fear of government bailout; the strengths and failings of U.S. health care

The problem, as numerous experts warned at the time, was whether the program could be run, as the law required, in a way that made it financially solvent for at least 75 years. The difficulty with the CLASS Act was ensuring that premiums could be set low enough to attract widespread participation but high enough to pay tbenefits. The risk was that the program would attract the sickest participants, who thought they might need its protections, and thereby drive premium prices ever higher in a spiral of dysfunctionhe promised.

19 Oct 2011

Autism in low birth weight babies five times more common: Study

Roughly 3% of U.S. newborns fall into the low-weight category used by the researchers (2,000 grams or less). Babies of this size are typically born prematurely, though certain pregnancy complications can also cause low birth weight in full-term babies.

18 Oct 2011

New DNA-based prenatal blood test can identify pregnancy with Down syndrome

A new DNA-based prenatal blood test that can strikingly reduce the number of risky diagnostic procedures needed to identify a pregnancy with Down syndrome is ready to be introduced into clinical practice.

18 Oct 2011

VIVUS announces Qnexa NDA resubmission for treatment of obesity

VIVUS, Inc. today announced that the company has resubmitted the New Drug Application (NDA) for Qnexa to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

18 Oct 2011

Viewpoints: Class Act's effect on health law; new prescriptions for Medicare; food marketing to kids

Now that one of ObamaCare's major new benefit programs has been scrapped, liberals are trying to make stone soup by claiming that the Obama Administration merely committed an act of "good government." They claim that when this long-term care insurance program proved to be unworkable, the Administration conceded as much, and now it's gone. So let's review the evidence, not least because it so perfectly illustrates the recklessness that produced the Affordable Care Act.

18 Oct 2011

Scientists discover enzyme that acts as a 'fertility switch'

Scientists have discovered an enzyme that acts as a 'fertility switch', in a study published in Nature Medicine today. High levels of the protein are associated with infertility, while low levels make a woman more likely to have a miscarriage, the research has shown.

18 Oct 2011

Women to use her mother’s womb in Australian medical first transplant

A Victorian woman will be the first Australian to use her own mother’s womb after it has been transplanted into her. Intensive care nurse Melinda Arnold, 34, will undergo a womb transplant after her mother, Denise Allen, agreed to donate the organ to her. Mrs. Arnold, who was born without a womb but with ovaries that produce eggs, twice tried unsuccessfully to use her mother as a surrogate and adoption attempts also failed.

17 Oct 2011

FDA may be lax when it comes to laws on sea food safety: Study

Due to the last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a new study contends that current federal standards underestimate the risk to pregnant women and children of cancer-causing contaminants that can accumulate in seafood from such spills.

16 Oct 2011