Court-ordered caesarean sections against the explicit wishes of the pregnant woman have been criticised as violations of the woman's fundamental right to autonomy and to the inviolability of the person--particularly, so it is argued, because the fetus in utero is not yet a person. This paper examines the logic of this position and argues that once the fetus has passed a certain stage of neurolo...

Objective: To compare mother and foetal outcomes in various delivery positions, as well the duration of second stage labour. Materials Methods: A total 75 primigravidae with vertex presentation no co-morbidities were grouped into supine 25 (Group 1), lateral 2) all fours birthing positions 3). The maternal fetal studied. Study Design: Randomized Parallel Group Trial. Results: mean labour was de...

The ultimate goal of antenatal and intranatal care is to have not only a healthy mother and a healthy baby, but also to achieve a successful vaginal delivery, keeping in mind the rising rates of caesarean deliveries. induced for various maternal and fetal indications. It has been stated that nearly about 13 patients requires induction of labour ultrasound examin assessing cervical findings for ...

Fetal breathing and body movements were simultaneously evaluated in twin pregnancies in order to determine to what extent these activities occur in a synchroneous pattern in both twin fetuses and if fetal position, presentation or sex have an influence on their behavior. Thirty healthy pairs of twins at 34-37 weeks of gestation were studied. Twenty-six percent of fetal body movements and 49% of...

Haemoglobin (Hb) J-Sardegna [alpha50(CE8)His-->Asp] is a haemoglobin variant characteristic of subjects from the island of Sardinia. Here we report a study of the functional properties of both fetal and adult Hb J-Sardegna. The results indicate that adult Hb J-Sardegna displays an oxygen affinity that is higher than that of adult Hb only in the presence of 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG). On t...

The switch from fetal to adult hemoglobin is incomplete; the residual fetal hemoglobin in adults is restricted to a subset of erythrocytes called F cells. F-cell levels are influenced by a sequence variant (C-->T) at position -158 upstream of the gamma-globin gene, termed the XmnI-Ggamma polymorphism. How the Ggamma-158 C-->T variant influences the expression of the Ggamma-globin gene is unknow...

Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia studied fetal health in Uruguay during the second half of the twentieth century. Caldeyro-Barcia developed Montevideo units, which are used to quantify intrauterine pressure, or the force of contractions during labor. Intrauterine pressure is a useful measure of the progression of labor and the health of a fetus [3]. Caldeyro-Barcia?s research on fetal health often contr...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether any common maternal-fetal variable has prenatal predictive value of prosthetic repair in congenital diaphragmatic hernia. METHODS This was a 5-year single-center retrospective review of fetal congenital diaphragmatic hernia referrals. Multiple prenatal variables were correlated with the need for a prosthetic repair. Statistical analyses were by Fisher's exact an...