BACKGROUND The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a lower-middle income country making steady progress improving maternal and child health outcomes. We sought to ascertain if there have been improvements in three specific birth outcomes (low birth weight, preterm birth and small for gestational age) over the last decade. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed birth records between 200...

OBJECTIVE Stress in pregnancy predicts earlier birth and lower birth weight. The authors investigated whether pregnancy-specific stress contributes uniquely to birth outcomes compared with general stress, and whether prenatal health behaviors explain this association. DESIGN Three structured prenatal interviews (N = 279) assessing state anxiety, perceived stress, life events, pregnancy-specif...

Birth outcomes of two groups of socially disadvantaged mothers at risk for adverse birth outcomes, one receiving prebirth assistance from a certified doula and the other representing a sample of birthing mothers who elected to not work with a doula, were compared. All of the mothers were participants in a prenatal health and childbirth education program. Expectant mothers matched with a doula h...

BACKGROUND Fertility treatment is associated with increased risk of major birth defects, which varies between in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and is significantly reduced by embryo freezing. We therefore examined a range of additional perinatal outcomes for these exposures. METHODS All patients in South Australia receiving assisted conception between ...

Dear Editor-in-Chief The recent report on “The Adverse Effects of Pregnancies Complicated by Hemoglobin H (HBH) Disease” is very interesting (1). Rabiee et al. reported a pregnant case complicated with HBH disease. Indeed, this problem might not common in the Middle East but it is very common in Southeast Asia. The authors hereby would like to share the experience on this top...

BACKGROUND Evidence on socioeconomic and ethnocultural disparities in perinatal health in Canada tends to be limited to analyses by neighbourhood or for selected provinces. In 2010, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research awarded funding for a project on perinatal outcomes. This article describes the resulting 2006 Canadian Birth-Census Cohort Database. DATA AND METHODS From the Canadian L...

This study evaluated the impact of maternal marital status on birth outcomes among young Malaysian women and investigated other risk factors influencing the birth outcomes. Pregnant women with and without marital ties at the point of pregnancy diagnosis were invited to participate in this study. Participants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire at pregnancy diagnosis and shortly af...

Background Today, many of women postpone their birth of the first baby until fourth or fifth decade. This study was to evaluate the pregnancy outcomes in women aged 40 years and older in pregnant women referred to Ayatolah Rohani Hospital in Babol. MaterialsAndMethods This case-control study was conducted of 160 patients in two groups, ≥ 40 age group and age group

zinc deficiency during pregnancy has been related to adverse pregnancy outcomes. however, the results of zinc-supplementation trials have not been consistent in improvement of pregnancies outcomes. this study was undertaken to investigate whether zinc supplementation was associated with pregnancy complications in iranian women during the last 2 trimesters. it also assessed the anthropometric me...

Outcomes of planned home birth with registered midwife versus planned hospital birth with midwife or physician Janssen, Saxell, Page, Klein, Liston, & Lee, Canadian Medical Association Journal, September 2009 "Interpretation: Planned home birth attended by a registered midwife was associated with very low and comparable rates of perinatal death and reduced rates of obstetric interventions and o...