OBJECTIVE To determine the value of measuring fetal ear length at 11-14 weeks of gestation in screening for chromosomal defects. METHODS The fetal ear length was measured in 450 fetuses immediately before chorionic villus sampling for karyotyping at 11-14 weeks of gestation. RESULTS The median gestational age was 12 (range, 11-14) weeks. The fetal ear was successfully examined in all cases....

Human preterm birth (PTB), a multifactorial syndrome affecting offspring born before 37 completed weeks of gestation, is the leading cause of newborn death worldwide. Remarkably, the degree to which early parturition contributes to mortality in other placental mammals remains unclear. To gain insights on whether PTB is a human-specific syndrome, we examined within- and between-species variation...

Epidemiological evidence shows that small size at birth is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adult life. We have examined the relationships between size at birth and maternal body composition and protein turnover in normal pregnant women. A group of 27 multiparous Caucasian women with singleton pregnancies were studied at around 18 and 28 we...

Field records from the American Simmental Association were used to estimate genetic parameters for direct and maternal effects of traits associated with dystocia. Estimates of the additive genetic variances of direct and maternal effects and of the additive genetic covariances of direct and maternal effects were calculated by equating the sire variance component, maternal grandsire variance com...

Background: Femur is a long bone that measures gestational age and contributes to human height weight, but can also be affected by growth retardation or skeletal abnormalities. Objective: To compare the effect of femur length on fetus using ultrasonography. Methods: The research was four-month crossectional study carried out in private hospital Tehsil Kharian, District Gujrat, Pakistan. Data ob...

Gestation length and maternal ability are important to improve the sow reproduction efficiency and their offspring survival. To map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for gestation length and maternal ability related traits including piglet survival rate and average body weight of piglets at weaning, more than 200 F2 sows from a White Duroc × Erhualian resource population were phenotyped. A genome-w...

In the recent years, sonographic images of fetal nose have gained popularity in detecting trisomy 21 and other aneuploidies. Reference values for nasal bone length have been reported in different countries and ethnic populations. However, there was no reference range for the fetal nasal bone length (NBL) in the Filipino population. This prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted to establ...

OBJECTIVE To determine the value of measuring fetal femur and humerus length at 11-14 weeks of gestation in screening for chromosomal defects. METHODS Femur and humerus lengths were measured using transabdominal ultrasound in 1018 fetuses immediately before chorionic villus sampling for karyotyping at 11-14 weeks of gestation. In the group of chromosomally normal fetuses, regression analysis ...

Abstract Commercial gestation housing systems for sows generally fail to cater fully their needs in terms of comfort or the ability perform highly motivated behaviours, which can lead chronic stress and an impairment welfare. We compared a typical system (CONTROL) with IMPROVED one as regards oral stereotypies, aggressive behaviour, skin lesions, locomotion, tear staining. Sows were mixed into ...