Fetal head progression during labor is difficult to assess. Digital examination has been shown to be an inaccurate method. Utilizing the ultrasound technology in the delivery room can standardize the way we assess head progression. Intrapartum ultrasound is applicable, for the assessment of the progression of labor and assists the obstetrician, in decision making regarding the need for an assis...

We were pleased to see the recently published data from MANA.1 However, critically reading the report leads to very different conclusions than those of the authors. Absent statistical comparisons, statements regarding “statistical congruence” falsely imply statistical comparability to earlier publications. After indicting birth certificate-based data as unreliable, the authors repeatedly cite s...

OBJECTIVES To examine the association of intrapartum temperature elevation with adverse neonatal outcome among low-risk women receiving epidural analgesia and evaluate the association of epidural with adverse neonatal outcome without temperature elevation. METHODS We studied all low-risk nulliparous women with singleton pregnancies ≥37 weeks delivering at our hospital during 2000, excluding p...

Group B streptococcus (GBS) remains worldwide a leading cause of severe neonatal disease. Since the end of the 1990s, various strategies for prevention of the early onset neonatal disease have been implemented and have evolved. When a universal antenatal GBS screening-based strategy is used to identify women who are given an intrapartum antimicrobial prophylaxis, a substantial reduction of inci...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Newborns are at the highest risk of dying around the time of birth, due to intrapartum-related complications. Our study's objective was to improve adherence to the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) neonatal resuscitation protocol and reduce perinatal mortality by using a quality improvement cycle (QIC) in a tertiary hospital in Nepal. METHODS The HBB QIC was implemented th...

Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 2003, 45: 363–363 363 ‘On the influence of abnormal parturition: difficult labours, premature birth, and asphyxia neonatorum, on the mental and physical condition of the child, especially in relation to deformities’. In the third paragraph he notes ‘the object of this communication is to show that the act of birth does occasionally imprint upon the nervo...

OBJECTIVE To examine trends in the rate of stillbirths at or after 21 weeks' gestation in Mexico from 2000 to 2013, identify factors associated with stillbirths and estimate subnational variability in stillbirth rates and the proportion of deaths occurring intrapartum. METHODS This population-based, ecological study involved data from a national database on 263 475 stillbirths in 29 Mexican s...

OBJECTIVE Early-onset neonatal seizures are a strong predictor of later morbidity and mortality in term infants. Although an association of noninfectious intrapartum fever with neonatal seizures in term infants has been reported, it was based on only a small number of neonates with seizures. We therefore conducted a case control study to investigate this association further. METHODS All term ...

Background The maternal and infant microbiome may influence infant cardiovascular risk through immune programming. The maternal vagino-enteric microbiome is often sampled for group B streptococcus (GBS) colonization during pregnancy. Our aim was to investigate the association between maternal GBS colonization, intrapartum antibiotics, antenatal pet exposure and infant aortic intima-media thickn...