“Maternal Obesity, Overweight Linked to Congenital Heart Defects - Medscape News” plus 4 more

Maternal Obesity, Overweight Linked to Congenital Heart Defects - Medscape News
Smoking in Pregnancy Linked to Psychotic Symptoms in Kids - Yahoo News
Pregnant Kendra Wilkinson thinks her ballooning breasts are "gross" - Newstrack India
Mom's flu hurts sons later - Columbus Dispatch
Smoking in pregnancy risks psychotic symptoms in children - Saudi Gazette

Maternal Obesity, Overweight Linked to Congenital Heart Defects - Medscape News

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 08:35 AM PDT

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Smoking in Pregnancy Linked to Psychotic Symptoms in Kids - Yahoo News

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 12:57 AM PDT

Neneng buzzed up: Despite recovery, employers aren't ready to hire (AP)

29 seconds ago 2009-10-02T22:42:45-07:00

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Pregnant Kendra Wilkinson thinks her ballooning breasts are "gross" - Newstrack India

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 12:43 AM PDT

New Delhi, Oct 2 (ANI): Mum-to-be Kendra Wilkinson is upset with the affect pregnancy has had on her boobs.

According to China Daily, the former Playboy playmate is due to give birth to her first baby with American football star husband Hank Baskett on Christmas Day.

"I want my boobs to stop growing.

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They're kind of gross. I know they'll shrink after I breastfeed, but if they don't, I might get a breast reduction," she told Usmagazine.

However, the 24-year-old star is thrilled with the way other parts of her body have changed.

The stunner has piled on 40lbs and feels she now has a much curvier posterior. (ANI)

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Mom's flu hurts sons later - Columbus Dispatch

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 02:59 AM PDT

The sons of mothers who were pregnant and exposed to a strain of the H1N1 flu virus during the 1918 pandemic were more likely to have lifetime health problems, new research reveals, suggesting that even a mild case of flu during pregnancy can have long-term effects on a baby.

The 1918-19 flu pandemic infected one-third of Americans, killing about 0.6 percent of the population, notes the University of Southern California study just published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

The flu tended to be mild, causing a three-day fever. Most deaths were caused by secondary bacterial infections. But the flu's health effects, researchers now know, were far-reaching.

Using results from National Health Interview Surveys from 1982 to 1996, researchers found that men born in the first few months of 1919 -- those exposed to the flu during the second or third trimester -- were 23.1 percent more likely to have heart disease after the age of 60 than the overall population.

World War II Army enlistment data for 2.7 million men born between 1915 and 1922 shows that average height increased every year -- except for the period coinciding with fetal exposure to the flu. Men born in 1919 were slightly shorter.

Women appear to have been less affected. Still, those born in the second quarter of 1919 -- who would have been exposed to the flu during the first trimester -- were 17 percent more likely to have heart disease later in life.

"Prevention is the best medicine here ... and if you do get the flu, take care of yourself so you don't get a secondary infection like pneumonia," said Caleb Finch, a USC professor of gerontology and biological sciences and the senior author of the study.

Finch said he decided to examine the long-term impact on health of the 1918 pandemic after two Chicago economists, using U.S. Census data, found that people exposed to the flu in utero that year were less successful. They had lifetime deficits in economic productivity and education, which suggested that they were developmentally impaired or faced health issues, the study said.

Studies looking at subsequent flu pandemics have revealed similarly disturbing health trends: Schizophrenia risk, for example, was three times higher in babies exposed to the flu in utero between 1959 and 1966.

Researchers theorize that a mother's stress responses to an infection are key in causing abnormal fetal development, Finch said.

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Smoking in pregnancy risks psychotic symptoms in children - Saudi Gazette

Posted: 02 Oct 2009 04:35 PM PDT

BODY & MIND

Mothers who smoke during pregnancy put their children at greater risk of developing psychotic symptoms as teenagers, British scientists said Thursday.
Researchers from four British universities studied 6,356 12-year-olds and interviewed them for psychotic-like symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions. Around 19 percent had mothers who smoked during pregnancy.
Just over 11 percent, or 734 of the total group, had suspected or definite symptoms of psychosis.
Many previous studies have shown cigarettes can harm the fetuses of mothers who smoke while pregnant. The risks include causing babies to be born smaller and increasing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome or heart defects.
Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University's School of Medicine who led the study, said the more the mothers smoked, the more likely their children were to have psychotic symptoms.
"We can estimate that about 20 percent of adolescents in this cohort would not have developed psychotic symptoms if their mothers had not smoked," he said.
Despite countless studies flagging up the risks to babies, it is estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of women in Britain alone smoke during pregnancy.
The reasons for the link between maternal smoking and psychotic symptoms are not clear, but Zammit and colleagues suggested that exposure to tobacco in the womb might affect a child's impulsivity, attention or cognition.
They said more research was needed to investigate how exposure to tobacco in the womb affected children's brains. – Reuters

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