All news from Maternity & Child Health
Zika virus is an arbovirus transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, but it can also be transmitted by sexual contact and blood transfusion. Adult patients infected with Zika usually present only mild symptoms over a few days, such as rashes, conjunctivitis, arthralgia and mild fever.
The new study, titled "Acute and chronic neurological consequences of early-life Zika virus infection in mice," is published in the renowned journal Science Translational Medicine, and offers new hope for the public health crisis that has arisen in countries affected by Zika virus.
If the blood of a pregnant woman is rhesus-negative (Rh-negative) and the blood of the fetus is rhesus-positive (Rh-positive), the woman may develop antibodies, which can cause severe harm to subsequent children in particular. In order to prevent this effect called sensitization, all Rh-negative pregnant women in Germany currently receive a prophylaxis.
A new type of test using a blood sample of the pregnant woman can determine the child's rhesus factor already before birth, however. Provided the test is sufficiently reliable, many women might not need the prophylaxis. Currently, the blood of the newborn baby is tested directly after birth.
Styled ‘Prevention of Unnecessary C-Section and Promotion of Normal Delivery in Bangladesh’, the draft was developed in consultation with the key stakeholders in Dhaka. As the next step, the plan which identified seven areas for further attention will be presented to the government.
Of the genetically diverse population of HIV-1 viruses present in an infected pregnant woman, the few she might transmit to her child during delivery are resistant to attack by antibodies in her blood, according to new research published in PLOS Pathogens by Amit Kumar of Duke University Medical Centre, North Carolina, and colleagues.
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently announced the launch of programme 'LaQshya', aimed at improving quality of care in labour room and maternity Operation Theatre.
Western Sydney University research has found that first-time mothers with mental health issues – in particular, maternal anxiety – are five times as likely to have their baby noted as having reflux when admitted to hospital.
The present analysis provides a more comprehensive evaluation of the risk factors associated with these STIs (CT, NG, TP, and CMV) and the impact of these combined untreated infections on HIV mother to child transmission in a high-risk cohort of late-presenting HIV-infected pregnant women who did not receive antiretroviral drugs (ARV) during pregnancy.
The family risk for asthma — typically passed from moms to babies — may not be a result of genetics alone: it may also involve the microbes found in a baby's digestive tract, according to the study published in European Respiratory Journal. The researchers from the University of Alberta showed there is an additional — and potentially treatable — reason why babies born to moms with asthma often develop the condition themselves.
The researchers from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health designed an online calculator to evaluate the effect of changes in breastfeeding rates on population health; the study featured in Breastfeeding Medicine.
