background: pregnant women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus are at increased risk of progressive carotid artery disorders. the current study evaluated carotid intima-media thickness (imt) in pregnant women with gestational diabetes at two time points of mid-term and full-term pregnancy to determine whether gestational diabetes mellitus causes increased imt. methods: this cross-sectio...

BACKGROUND/AIM Although the safety of acupuncture per se in pregnancy is reasonably well accepted, there remains debate regarding needling at points historically considered to be 'forbidden' during pregnancy. This article reviews the scientific literature on this topic. MAIN FINDINGS There is no objective evidence of harm following needling at forbidden points, summarised by the following fou...

Acupuncture has been used in numerous diseases and for many types of symptoms. It has been also used for obstetric complaints, such as nausea and vomiting, insomnia and low back and girdle pain. There has long been concern that some points--called forbidden--might harm pregnancy owing to a potential abortifacient effect, but it is difficult to confirm this proposition. The small number of avail...

During Pregnancy most women experience some kind of pain due to a pre-existing condition or a direct consequence of pregnancy. Untreated persistent pain can have adverse effects on the maternal and foetal health. Since time immemorial optimum therapeutic doses of commonly used analgesics including paracetamol, and aspirin have not been associated with increased incidence of birth defects. Chron...

OBJECTIVE Insulin glargine (Lantus) is an extended-action insulin analog with greater stability and duration of action than regular human insulin. The long duration of action and decreased incidence of hypoglycemia provide potential advantages for its use in pregnancy. However, the placental pharmacokinetics of insulin glargine have not been studied. Therefore, the objective of this study was t...

QUESTION I have a 30-year-old patient who had a kidney transplant 2 years ago. She is now planning a pregnancy. She has been treated with tacrolimus since her transplant. Will it be safe for the fetus if she continues to take it during the pregnancy or should she switch to a different antirejection medication? ANSWER If your patient is stable while taking tacrolimus, there is no reason to swi...

occupational accidents severely deteriorate human capital, and hence negatively affect the productivity andcompetitiveness. but despite these negative points, there are still deficiencies in safety managementperformance and indicators. therefore the safety issue needs an active management. for this reason, thewriter has proposed an approach to evaluate organizations based on safety management. ...

In their recent editorial Mannion and Braithwaite provide an insightful critique of traditional patient safety improvement efforts, and offer a powerful alternative vision based on Safety-II thinking that has the potential to radically transform the way we approach patient safety. In this commentary, I explore how the Safety-II perspective points to new directions for organisational learning in...