Archive for the 'PREGNANCY ISSUES' Category

Undiagnosed infections may be causing a significant number of premature births, researchers reported on Monday after finding bacteria or fungi in 15 percent of the amniotic fluid samples taken from women in pre-term labor.

The heavier the infection, the more likely the women were to deliver younger, sicker infants, the team at Stanford University in California found.

“If we could prevent these infections in the first place, or detect them sooner, we might one day be able to prevent some of these premature births,” Dr. Dan DiGiulio, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

More and more children are being born prematurely in the United States, with 12 percent of births coming before the 37th week of gestation. Premature babies are vulnerable to breathing problems, underdeveloped organs, infections and cerebral palsy.

DiGiulio’s team looked for the DNA of germs in amniotic fluid samples collected from 166 women in pre-term labor at the Detroit Medical Center between October 1998 and December 2002.

They used this method and standard laboratory cultures to determine that 25 of the 166 samples were infected with either bacteria or fungi. They also found at least one unknown organism that could be a new species.

Alcohol use during the teen years can not only lead to subsequent alcohol problems, it can also lead to risky sexual behavior and a greater risk of early childbearing.

An examination of the relationship between a lifetime history of alcohol dependence (AD) and timing of first childbirth across reproductive development has found that AD in women is associated with delayed reproduction.

“Reproductive dysfunctions include a range of menstrual disorders, sexual dysfunctions, and pregnancy complications that include spontaneous abortion or miscarriage,” explained Mary Waldron, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study.

“Teenagers who drink tend to have disruptions in their menstrual cycle as well as unplanned pregnancies.”

These complications may become more pronounced with time, added Sharon C. Wilsnack, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in the department of clinical neuroscience at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

“Higher rates of reproductive dysfunction in adult women may reflect the cumulative effects of longer exposure to alcohol for older women than for female adolescents,” she said.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine alcohol’s effects on reproductive onset across reproductive development,” said Waldron. “Most previous research has examined risks to teens or adults but not both.

In a study on fetal alcohol syndrome, researchers were able to prevent the damage that alcohol causes to cells in a key area of the fetal brain by blocking acid sensitive potassium channels and preventing the acidic environment that alcohol produces.

The cerebellum, the portion of the brain that is responsible for balance and muscle coordination, is particularly vulnerable to injury from alcohol during development.

The researchers also found that although alcohol lowers the amount of oxygen in the blood of the mother, it is not the lack of oxygen that damages the fetal cerebellum, but the drop in pH.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition in which maternal drinking during pregnancy injures the brain of the developing fetus.

Alcohol is the most common cause of injury to the fetal brain. Children born with fetal alcohol syndrome may have cognitive impairments and difficulty regulating their behavior.

They often have difficulty in school and exhibit behavioral problems, such as impulsiveness, later in life.

The syndrome is estimated to occur in approximately one in every 1,000 births in Western countries. Milder forms of the condition, known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, occur more frequently.

Do you have severe abdominal pain? During pregnancy, most of you suffer from abdominal pain.

Most often, it is due to round ligament pain. Round ligament pain is due to various bodily changes that takes place during your pregnancy.

Generally, the pain is referred to as a brief, sharp, stabbing pain or a long lasting dull pain that most of the pregnant women experience in the lower abdomen.

Usually, this condition starts in the second trimester of your pregnancy.

If you suddenly change the position, you will experience the round ligament pain as a short stabbing sensation.

For example, suddenly getting up from the bed, from the chair, when rolling over in your bed, whenever you cough, or when you get out of the bath tub, you will experience this pain.

Usually, your uterus is surrounded by round ligaments in the pelvis. When the uterus starts growing in your pregnancy, these ligaments get stretched and thickened to hold and support the uterus.

Occasionally, these changes can cause the pain on or both sides of your abdomen, but most commonly the pain occurs on the right side of your pelvis.

Do you have the condition of excessive bleeding after the delivery? This is the condition of postpartum hemorrhage.

Up to 4% of women experience postpartum hemorrhage and it more likely occurs with a cesarean birth. Usually, hemorrhage will occur before or after the placenta is delivered.

In vaginal delivery, the amount of blood loss is about 500ml, but in cesarean birth, the amount of blood loss is 1,000ml.

Most of the times postpartum hemorrhage occurs immediately after the delivery, but sometimes it can occur later also.

Once after the delivery, the uterus continues to contract and expels the placenta. After the delivery of placenta, the uterine contractions help to compress the bleeding vessels at the region where the placenta was connected.

If there are no proper uterine contractions, then the blood vessels will freely bleed and finally results in postpartum hemorrhage. If any minute pieces of placenta remain attached, then also bleeding continues.

Some of you are at greater risk of postpartum hemorrhage when compared to others. Here are some conditions that can lead to postpartum hemorrhage:

• Multiple pregnancies: The condition in which more than one placenta exists and also over distension of your uterus.

Placental abruption is an uncommon but the most serious complication of pregnancy [Pregnancy Complications] and needs immediate medical attention.

The peeling of placenta away from the inner walls of the uterus before delivery either completely or partially is known as placental abruption.

This condition leads to insufficient supply of oxygen and nutrients to your developing baby and also causes heavy bleeding. If the condition is left untreated, then it will be very serious for both you and your baby.

Effects of placental abruption on you:

• Blood transfusion and staying in intensive care after the delivery are essential due to large loss of blood or hemorrhage.
• Improper uterine contractions can lead to the usage of drugs to help the uterus to contract.
• You will encounter the problem of blood clotting for some days.
• The condition leading to severe shock can affect other organs of your body like kidney, liver and pituitary gland.
• If your blood does not clot at the time of cesarean section, then various transfusions can lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation. At this time, your doctor considers hysterectomy.

Effects of placental abruption on your baby:

• Due to the separation of large amount of placenta from the uterus, your baby will be distressed until the delivery.

Normally placenta attaches to the walls of the uterus. But, during some conditions, placenta attaches itself too deeply to the walls of the uterus.

Usually, this condition is called as placenta accreta or placenta percreta. Generally, this condition is based on the severity and deepness of the placenta attachment.

Normally, one in 2,500 pregnancies has a chance to occur placenta accreta, percreta or increta.

What conditions result in placenta accreta?

Generally, the exact cause behind placenta accreta is still unknown. But, according to some experts, this condition is related to placenta previa and the previous cesarean deliveries. Placenta accreta can be observed in 5-10% of pregnant women with placenta previa.

Usually, cesarean delivery raises the chances of placenta accreta in the future. The more the cesarean deliveries, the greater the chances of occurrence of this condition. Multiple cesareans exist in over 60% cases of placenta accreta.

What are the risks associated with placenta accreta to your baby?

The major concerns with placenta accreta to your baby include premature delivery and consequent issues. Bleeding during the third trimester of pregnancy is the common indication that placenta accreta exists and when this condition occurs, it generally results in premature delivery.

A new study shows that pregnant women who smoke [smoking during preganancy] or regularly breathe second-hand smoke may be raising the odds that their baby will be born with a cleft lip.

Cleft lip and cleft palate are among the most common types of birth defect. They arise when the tissues that form the roof of the mouth and the upper lip do not fuse properly, sometime between the fifth and ninth week of pregnancy.

In the current study, Norwegian researchers found that women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes per day during their first trimester [first trimester pregnancy] were nearly twice as likely to have a baby with a cleft lip as nonsmokers were.

Similarly, nonsmoking women who were near a smoker for at least two hours each day had a 60 percent higher risk than women who were not exposed to passive smoking.

Past studies have linked mothers’ smoking to cleft lip and, less consistently, to cleft palate.

The new findings add that to that evidence, and also suggest that smoking affects the odds of cleft lip regardless of certain genes.

Mothers who eat an unhealthy diet during pregnancy may be putting their children at risk of developing long term, irreversible health issues including obesity, raised levels of cholesterol and blood sugar, according to new research.

The offspring of the mothers fed junk food diets had raised levels of cholesterol as well as higher levels of triglycerides, a type of fat found in the bloodstream.

Both are known to increase the risk of developing heart disease. Similarly, the offspring had higher levels of glucose and insulin, both of which increase the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes.

“It seems that a mother’s diet whilst pregnant and breastfeeding is very important for the long term health of her child,” says Dr Bayol.

A 2007 US study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology showed that the more weight that pregnant women put on, the higher the risk that the child would be obese children. A 2005 British Medical Journal study also showed a correlation between parental and child weight.

One surprising find from the study was how the maternal diet disrupted the offspring’s metabolism: male offspring whose mothers had gorged on junk food had higher levels of insulin and normal levels of glucose, whilst the opposite was true for female offspring, who also tended to be fatter.

Low birth weight and preterm delivery increase the likelihood that a child will be autistic, with girls being at particular risk, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

“Pediatricians are probably sensitive to the fact that low birth weight children or children born too soon have special developmental needs,” researcher Dr. Diana Schendel of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, told Reuters Health.

“This study simply supports that they should not overlook the behavioral aspects of development.”

She noted that while boys far outnumber girls in the general population of children with autism, physicians “may need to be aware that they will see more equal numbers of boys and girls” with autism among low birth weight and preterm children, based on the current findings.

The researchers found that among low-birth-weight and preterm children, autism was less common than other developmental disabilities, such as cerebral palsy and hearing or vision loss.

However, children born weighing less than 2,500 grams — or roughly 5.5 pounds — had about twice the risk of autism as those with a normal birth weight. Similarly, children born before the 33rd week of pregnancy were twice as likely to develop the disorder as those born at full-term.