OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between fish consumption and total mercury concentration in maternal blood, umbilical cord blood, and placenta tissue of pregnant women in Taiwan. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING A medical centre in Taipei, Taiwan. SAMPLE Sixty-five pregnant women delivered between July 2004 and March 2005. METHODS We administered a qu...

OBJECTIVES To quantitatively analyze placental perfusion in a rat model at different gestation time and different portions of placenta by real-time contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and parametric imaging analysis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty pregnant rats at different gestation time (15 dys,17 days and 20 days) were injected intravenously with microbubbles (5×10(5) microbubbles /ml, 1.0 ml...

To clarify the maternal-fetal transfer of mercury across the placenta, inorganic and organic mercury were determined in 41 paired samples of maternal blood, placenta, umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord obtained from pregnant women who had no particular exposure to mercury compounds in their history. Both inorganic and organic mercury were detected in all the samples but the ratio of organi...

Placenta previa presents a highest risk to pregnancy, and placenta accreta is the most serious. Placenta accreta requires cesarean delivery and often results in massive obstetric hemorrhage and higher maternal morbidity. Challenges associated with cesarean delivery techniques may contribute to increased maternal blood loss and morbidity rates. Several recent obstetric studies reported the usefu...

F ollowing on the seminal observations of Barker and associates (1), maternal hormonal and nutrient environment has been systematically implicated in effects on the developing fetus that ultimately influence susceptibility to a wide range of metabolic, neurodevelopmental, and psychiatric diseases in adulthood (2, 3). There is a growing appreciation that perturbations in the maternal environment...

Fetal liver immaturity is accompanied by active heme catabolism. Thus fetal biliary pigments must be excreted toward the mother by the placenta. To investigate biliverdin handling by the placenta-maternal liver tandem, biliverdin-IXalpha was administered to 21-day pregnant rats through the jugular vein or the umbilical artery of an in situ perfused placenta. Jugular administration resulted in t...

1 Alev Özer, Hilal Sakallı, Bülent Köstü, Şakir Aydoğdu Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University Hospital, Kahramanmaras, Turkey MATERNAL-NEONATAL OUTCOMES IN PLACENTA PREVIA ANALYSIS OF MATERNAL AND NEONATAL OUTCOMES IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF PLACENTA PREVIA AND IN PREVIA-ACCRETA COEXISTENCE PLASENTA PREVİANIN FARKLI TİPLERİNDE VE PREVİA-AKRETA BİRLİKTELİĞİNDE M...

The placenta functions as the barrier between fetus and mother, providing means of regulating of heat exchange, respiration, nutrition, and excretion for the fetus. In this paper, the multitracer technique was applied to study the maternal transport of trace elements via the placenta to the fetus. In this experiment, the multitracer solution used contained the following nuclides: Be, Na, Sc, V,...

Listeria monocytogenes causes foodborne outbreaks that lead to infection in human and other mammalian fetuses. To elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in transplacental transmission, we characterized placental-fetal infection in pregnant guinea pigs inoculated with wild-type (wt) or mutant L. monocytogenes strains. The wt strain increased in number in the placenta by >1000-f...

The environment in which the fetus develops is critical for its survival and long-term health. The regulation of normal human fetal growth involves many multidirectional interactions between the mother, placenta, and fetus. The mother supplies nutrients and oxygen to the fetus via the placenta. The fetus influences the provision of maternal nutrients via the placental production of hormones tha...