This study was conducted to review the overall short-term outcome of monoamniotic twins in Japan and to determine the prospective risk of fetal death so as to adequately counsel parents with monoamniotic twins. Study subjects were 101 women with monoamniotic twins who were registered with the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology Successive Pregnancy Birth Registry System and who had given...

The fetus undergoes postmortem changes after death in utero due to autolysis. Several reports have suggested that the autolysis may provide a method for determining the intrauterine retention time (IURT).Among them, the Genest’s study has presented the loss of nuclear basophilia as a most reliable histologic indicator. According to the Genest’s criteria, 10 histologic features based on loss of ...

OBJECTIVE Fetal vessel thrombosis has been related to pregnancy complications and adverse neonatal outcomes in singleton pregnancies, but the clinical and pathologic characteristics of fetal thrombosis in twin pregnancy are still ill defined. METHODS To clarify the characteristics of fetal thrombosis in twins, we reviewed the histology slides and medical records of live-born infants of twin p...

A 15-week gestation female fetus was delivered for unexplained intrauterine fetal death. The fetus weighed 125 g and had a crown heel length of 17 cm. Clinical maternal history was unremarkable, with a regular course of gestation until then. At autopsy, no somatic and/or visceral malformations were disclosed. All thoracic and abdominal organs showed initial autolytic changes, the liver was incr...

Adverse pregnancy outcome due to human parvovirus B19 (hereafter referred to as "parvovirus B19") has been characterized, in numerous reports, as an event that occurs during the first and second trimesters and is strongly associated with symptoms of fetal hydrops. Recent findings have indicated that parvovirus B19-associated intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) is also a problem in late gestation, a...

OBJECTIVE Substance use in pregnancy is associated with placental abruption, but the risk of fetal death independent of abruption remains undetermined. Our objective was to examine the effect of maternal drug dependence on placental abruption and on fetal death in association with abruption and independent of it. METHODS To examine placental abruption and fetal death, we performed a retrospec...

Heme Oxygenase-1 (HO-1) has been shown to play a pivotal role in pregnancy outcome and its ablation leads to abnormal placentation, intrauterine fetal growth restriction (IUGR) and subsequent intrauterine fetal death. Carbon monoxide (CO) has been found to mimic the protective effects of HO-1 activity, rescuing HO-1-deficient fetuses. This gasotransmitter arises in biological systems during the...

Hypoxia is a common intrauterine stressor, often resulting in intrauterine growth restriction and increased risk for cardiovascular disease later in life. The aim of this work was to test the hypothesis that microRNA-210 (miR-210) mediates the detrimental suppression of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in response to hypoxia in fetal rat cardiomyocytes. Cardiomyocytes isolated from gestational day ...