plus 4, Doppler Ultrasound in Pregnancy Reduces Risk in High-Risk Groups - Science Daily

Doppler Ultrasound in Pregnancy Reduces Risk in High-Risk Groups - Science Daily
Pregnancy center celebrates life - Rocky Mount Telegram
Doctors encourage depression screening during and after pregnancy - Los Angeles Times Blogs
Fortified foods boost key vitamin in pregnancy-aged woman - Pakistan News Service
Pregnancy Is Too Complicated for "LIfe Begins At XXX." Just Ask Me: I ... - RH Reality Check

Doppler Ultrasound in Pregnancy Reduces Risk in High-Risk Groups - Science Daily

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 10:27 PM PST

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2010) — Current evidence suggests that using Doppler ultrasound in high-risk pregnancies to monitor a fetus' health may reduce caesarean sections and the number of babies who die, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review.

Doppler ultrasound is a well established technique used to diagnose problems during pregnancy. In the same way that a speed radar measures how fast cars are travelling, Doppler ultrasound can monitor how fast blood is moving in the umbilical blood flow. Professionals can then look to see whether the blood flow is normal, indicating that the fetus is healthy, or abnormal, indicating that the fetus is under stress. The health professionals can then decide which high-risk pregnancies need assistance in delivering the baby, and which women can be left to deliver without assistance.

The aim of using Doppler is to reduce risk to the baby. However, some experts argue that it may prompt some unnecessary early interventions.

The review included 18 studies which together included 10,000 women in "high risk" groups. High risk women included those who had previously lost babies during pregnancy, those carrying growth restricted babies and women with hypertension or diabetes. Women who were examined with Doppler ultrasound were compared with those who had no Doppler or with those who had cardiotocography (CTG), which monitors the baby's heartbeat. According to the results, Doppler reduced infant deaths, possibly through better timing of caesarean sections, as well as reducing the number of caesarean sections themselves, and inductions of labour. However, the researchers say the studies included were of questionable quality.

"A case could certainly be made for a higher quality, multi-centre trial of Doppler ultrasound than we have so far seen," said lead researcher Zarko Alfirevic, who is based at the Division of Perinatal and Reproductive Medicine at the University of Liverpool. "It is quite possible that for some so-called high risk groups fetal Doppler offers little or no benefit. Women with diabetes are one such group where fetal Doppler may, in fact, give false reassurance.

"It is important to point out, of course, that it is the clinical decision that follows a Doppler ultrasound examination that changes the outcome for the baby, and currently there is little agreement on what intervention should follow an abnormal Doppler finding."

Work on this review was supported by a grant from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), UK.

Story Source:

Adapted from materials provided by Wiley-Blackwell, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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Pregnancy center celebrates life - Rocky Mount Telegram

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 07:00 PM PST

The Pregnancy Care Center Board of Directors has named Star Parker, nationally known policy consultant and author, as the keynote speaker at this year's Pregnancy Care Center Banquet.

The 2010 "Celebrate Life" Banquet will be held at Englewood Baptist Church on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 at 7 p.m.

Reservations are required and must be made by Feb. 10, 2010.

"Star travels the United States sharing the stunning chronicle of how she left a life of drugs, crime, and welfare abuse through the power of the gospel to become a leading advocate for the family," said Kay F. Gurganus, PCC executive director.

"She is at the forefront of the conservative movement to motivate and lead others away from the lies of the culture to a life full of grace and truth," she said.

Parker is the founder and president of CURE, the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, a nonprofit think-thank that provides a national voice of reason on issues of race and poverty in the media, inner city neighborhoods and public policy.

As a social policy consultant, Parker gives regular testimony before the United States Congress, and is a national expert on major television and radio shows across the country.

Currently, Parker is a regular commentator on CNN, C-Span, MSNBC, and Fox News.

She has debated Jesse Jackson on BET; fought for school choice on Larry King Live; and defended welfare reform on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Parker's personal transformation from welfare fraud to conservative crusader has been chronicled by ABC's 20/20, Christianity Today, the Washington Times and others.

Parker is the author of several books, including her newest, "White Ghetto," published in 2006.

"We anticipate this banquet will sell out fast," said Kay. "We recommend that people get their reservations early."

For more information about the 2010 Celebrate Life Banque, contact the Pregnancy Care Center at 446-2273.

All pledges and contributions to the Pregnancy Care Center are tax-deductible and remain in the local community.

Funds are used to provide a variety of free services which include: pregnancy tests, limited ultrasounds, fatherhood classes, HIV and Syphilis testing, STD screening for Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, abstinence counseling, and information on pregnancy, adoption, abortion risks and procedures.

Clothing and furnishings for mothers and babies are available through the HOPE program and HEART, Healing Encouragement for Abortion-related Trauma, offers support groups and Bible studies. Contributions also enable the Worth Waiting4! Program to provide abstinence presentations in local schools and churches.

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Doctors encourage depression screening during and after pregnancy - Los Angeles Times Blogs

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 02:06 PM PST

Pregnancy and the postpartum period are peak times for women to experience depression, and routine screening for the condition should be a priority, say the authors of an opinion paper issued today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

An estimated 14% to 23% of pregnant women experience depression, while 5% to 25% will have postpartum depression. The illness carries serious repercussions for both mother and baby, noted the authors of the paper. During pregnancy, depression raises the risk of preterm birth and other adverse outcomes. After the birth, the mother is not only impacted by depression but infants can suffer cognitive, neurologic and motor skill delays because the mother's illness affects her interactions with her baby.

"We recognize that postpartum depression is a serious health issue that we need to direct more attention toward," Dr. Gerald F. Joseph Jr., president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a news release. "Screening for depression during pregnancy is also important to identify it early on and to help prevent a worsening of the condition after delivery."

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Louid Balukoff / Associated Press

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Fortified foods boost key vitamin in pregnancy-aged woman - Pakistan News Service

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 09:08 PM PST

ISLAMABAD: Women of childbearing age who double the amount of folic acid in their blood since require that flour and other grains be fortified with the vitamin to help reduce birth defects, health officials say.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expect the payoff will be fewer spinal and brain defects.

"We're talking about a simple intervention here that can prevent up to half of those birth defects," said Dr. David Fleming, CDC deputy director for science and public health. "We're very confident."

Since 1998, food manufacturers have been required to fortify pasta, cereals, rice and other grain products with folic acid, a B vitamin that has been shown in previous studies to reduce spinal and brain defects.

The recent CDC study showed that women ages 15 to 44 averaged more than double the amount of folic acid in their blood compared with women in a similar study conducted between 1988 and 1994.

Researchers found blood levels of folic acid increased on average from 6.3 to 16.2 nanograms per milliliter. A nanogram is one billionth of a gram.

While that test measures short-term folate levels in the blood, the CDC also found increases in the amount of folic acid stored in red blood cells, where the vitamin takes longer to accumulate.

Folic acid is found naturally in citrus fruit, beans, tuna, eggs and leafy green vegetables like spinach. Before pastas and other cereals were fortified, doctors urged pregnant women to take vitamin supplements as well.

The problem, researchers say, is that folates are most beneficial very early in pregnancy -- before many women know they are pregnant.

The CDC has not released any data showing an actual decline in birth defects since the 1998 food mandate. But studies earlier this year in South Carolina and Texas showed reductions when pregnant women increased their folic acid intake.

"It might be a year or two or three before we're able to come forward and say here's the final proof," Fleming said.

Dr. Donald Mattoon, medical director for the March of Dimes, called the CDC study an important step that "does suggest that food fortification may have had an impact."

But he cautioned that the CDC's research does not look at whether folate levels vary among different ethnic and socio-economic groups.

End.

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Pregnancy Is Too Complicated for "LIfe Begins At XXX." Just Ask Me: I ... - RH Reality Check

Posted: 21 Jan 2010 06:45 PM PST

This article is published as part of a series by RH Reality Check and our colleagues in observance of the 37th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.

I was catching up on the live coverage of the America Life League meeting when the clinic called me to offer congratulations. According to them, I was "almost 'not pregnant'."

Considering what a struggle it had always been for me to get pregnant, I supposed it was only fair that I found it so hard to become unpregnant, too. We spent a full year trying for our first child before we were lucky enough to conceive. So it wasn't so shocking when it took the same about of time to conceive our second. The shock came later, at our first appointment, when we they couldn't find a heartbeat.

We lost that potential life at 8 weeks 2 days, or just over six weeks after conception. In the time that passed between that loss and the visit that showed us that it was gone, my body had soldiered on in pregnancy even though there was no longer a fetus, with my hcg levels increasing, pregnancy symptoms continuing, and my uterus expanding to a full 12 weeks. Because my body was refusing to miscarry on its own, we had to schedule a D&C to have the "products of conception" removed.

I was nearly 12 weeks pregnant, and just finishing my first trimester. It was Halloween.

Your body goes through many different things after a pregnancy is removed, and no two situations are the same. But for those of us with missed miscarriages, we have follow up appointments to make sure our bodies are returning to normal, tracking, among other things, the level of pregnancy hormone in our body to make sure it returns to normal.

Some offices define "pregnant" as any hcg level over 25. Others, any level over 5. When you are having a successful pregnancy, your level doubles roughly every 48 hours. After a D&C, your body should have a drastic drop, although some don't. And your levels should decrease in half every 48 hours, although some don't.

Mine didn't, and still refuses to. Now, nearly 12 weeks since the surgery, I am at 21. I am still, technically, "pregnant."

I think of these timelines when I hear people touting the personhood amendment, or declaring that life begins the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg. They are so definite that that is the moment life that a woman is "pregnant." But when, then, does a woman become "not pregnant?"

Was it when the fetus lost its heartbeat? In that case, I haven't been pregnant in almost four months.

Was it when I had the D&C and it was removed? Then I haven't been pregnant since October.

Or is it when my body chemically has everything out of my system? If so, then yes, I'm still pregnant even without anything growing inside of me.

I find it hard to understand how people can be certain that a fertilized egg at that precise moment becomes a life. It hasn't implanted anywhere where it can grow in order to live. It doesn't have a heartbeat. It hasn't become something that can survive without assistance. How does it now develop total rights that surpass even that of the woman carrying it?

If the end of a pregnancy can be this fluid, how can "this is the exact moment that a human begins and has rights?" Pregnancy is far too complicated for that.

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