In mammals, both parental genomes are essential for normal ontogeny because epigenetic modifications imposed in the parents' gametes lead to parent-of-origin specific gene expression in their offspring. These phenomena are referred to as genomic imprinting. It has been shown that maternal imprinting is established during oocyte growth, lack of maternal imprinting in zygotes leads to early embry...

Maternal and infant mortality are basic health indicators that reflect a nation's health status. In the United States, infant mortality has declined steadily; however, this is not true for maternal mortality. This report presents data from death certificates compiled by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, which indicate that in the United States, the annual maternal mortality ratio rem...

BACKGROUND Several European countries report differences in risk of maternal mortality between immigrants from low- and middle-income countries and host country women. The present study identified suboptimal factors related to care-seeking, accessibility, and quality of care for maternal deaths that occurred in Sweden from 1988-2010. METHODS A subset of maternal death records (n = 75) among f...

BACKGROUND Norway has low maternal mortality, but such deaths are underreported even in high-income countries. Our goal was to identify the exact number of maternal deaths, the causes of death and the potential for improvement through medical care in Norway. MATERIAL AND METHOD We traced maternal deaths in the period from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2009 by linking the Medical Birth Registr...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) remains one of the biggest obstacles for effective cancer therapy. Currently there are only few methods that are available clinically that are used to bypass MDR with very limited success. In this review we describe how MDR can be overcome by a simple yet effective approach of using amphiphilic block copolymers. Triblock copolymers of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and po...

This article describes maternal mortality trends in São Paulo, Brazil, from 1960 through 1990. In so doing, it compares mortality rates derived from death certificate data with rates suggested by three independent surveys conducted in the city of São Paulo in 1962-1963, 1974-1975, and 1986. In general, these data indicate that a substantial share of all maternal deaths in the city have been asc...

We thankMarge Koblinksy for her considered editorial on the Maternal Death Surveillance and Response (MDSR) approach used in Kenya and lessons learned, described in our recent article published in GHSP. Her views on the potential effectiveness of MDSR in resource-limited settings, however, seem pessimistic. Firstly, Koblinsky argues that MDSR is too complicated and demanding in lowand middle-in...

Background: Poor maternal sensitivity leads to insecure infant attachment, and has been associated with negative cognitive consequences later in life. Maternal sensitivity is an indicator of the interactions between mothers and infants characterized by mutual and concurrent interchanges. The aim of the study is to review and synthesize all published studies that examine the potential effect of ...

Tuberculosis is the leading infectious cause of death worldwide, with 9·6 million cases and 1·5 million deaths reported in 2014. WHO estimates 480,000 cases of these were multidrug resistant (MDR). Less than half of patients who entered into treatment for MDR tuberculosis successfully completed that treatment, mainly due to high mortality and loss to follow-up. These in turn illustrate weakness...