BACKGROUND It has been suggested that an adverse fetal environment increases susceptibility to hypertension and cardiovascular disease in adult life. This increased risk may result from suboptimal development of the heart and main arteries in utero and from adaptive cardiovascular changes in conditions of reduced fetal growth. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether reduced fetal g...

Cholesterol is necessary for the proper growth and development of the fetus. Consequently, disruptions in cholesterol biosynthesis lead to abnormal fetal development. It has been shown that in cells exposed to polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), the expressions of genes and activities of enzymes involved in cholesterol synthesis are reduced. Similarly, we found that adult male hamsters fed PUFA...

Background: To evaluate the association of increased fetal nuchal translucency( NT) and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Materials and Methods: In a prospective study, 2221 women who were conceived after Assisted Conception were investigated by sonography independent of multiplicity between 11 and 13 weeks' gestation. We performed 2899 NT examinations during the study period(21 March 2010 to 21...

We studied the effects of 10-minute periods of hypoxemia in unanesthetized fetal lambs in utero instrumented for measurements of arterial pressure and renal and iliac blood flows. Fetal hypoxemia, induced by delivering a hypoxic gas mixture to the ewe, was characterized by a reduction in fetal PaO2 from 20.1 +/- 1.4 to 8.8 +/- 1.0 mm Hg (mean +/- SE). The fetus responded with bradycardia and pe...

BACKGROUND There has been a considerable decline in fetal and neonatal mortality in the Western world. The authors hypothesized that this decline has been largest for boys, since boys have a higher risk of fetal and neonatal death. METHODS The authors used data from the Medical Birth Registry about all births in Norway to study changes during 1967-2005 in mortality for boys and girls from the...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether fetal blood circulation is influenced by the maternal supine position. METHODS The inclusion criteria were good health, a singleton pregnancy, maternal age between 18 and 40 years, gestational age between 36 and 40 weeks, and an agreement to participate in the study. Each participant (n=20) was initially asked to adopt the left lateral position for 5 min, whil...

BACKGROUND Over the past decade there has been mounting evidence that ambient air pollution during pregnancy influences fetal growth. OBJECTIVES This study was designed to examine possible associations between fetal ultrasonic measurements collected from 15,623 scans (13-26 weeks gestation) and ambient air pollution during early pregnancy. METHODS We calculated mothers' average monthly expo...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling increase the risk of postural deformities, limb reduction defects, respiratory problems in the newborn, fetal and infant mortality, prematurity, low birthweight and fetal distress, and to investigate the impact of gestational length at the time of the procedure. DESIGN A population-based cohort study. SETTING Swede...

chorionic villus sampling (cvs) is a new method and its true risk of fetal loss and complications is not still clearly determined. the objective of this study was to review the clinical pregnancy outcome of transabdominal cvs (ta-cvs) performed on women with minor beta thalassemia. ta-cvs performed on 300 women with a singleton pregnancy and we could follow 213 women until delivery. data regard...

We hypothesized that chronic hypoxia disrupts mitochondrial function via oxidative stress in fetal organs. Pregnant guinea pig sows were exposed to either normoxia or hypoxia (10.5% O2, 14 days) in the presence or absence of the antioxidant, N-acetylcysteine (NAC). Near-term anesthetized fetuses were delivered via hysterotomy, and fetal livers, hearts, lungs, and forebrains harvested. We quanti...