Pregnancy Archive

JAMA / Archives - Older age of fathers may be associated with an increased risk for bipolar disorder in their offspring, according to a report in the September 2008 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Bipolar disorder is a common, severe mood disorder involving episodes of mania and depression, according to background information in the article. [...]

Giving an infusion of an inexpensive, natural compound - magnesium sulfate - just before delivery to pregnant women who were at high risk for preterm birth cut the rate of cerebral palsy in the children born by half, a new study found.
“This is one of the most promising breakthroughs in the management of high-risk pregnancies [...]

While the following report describes the link between vitamin D deficiency in mothers during pregnancy and later dental problems in their young children, the more shocking finding from our point of view is that adequate vitamin D levels were found in only 11 percent of the mothers tested! Not only is this degree of vitamin [...]

JAMA - An examination of newborn intensive care finds that newborn babies undergo numerous procedures that are associated with pain and stress, and that as many as 80 percent of these procedures are performed without medication or therapy to relieve pain , according to a study in the July 2, 2008 issue of JAMA .
“Repeated [...]

The current standard practice of giving infants and children 100 percent oxygen to prevent brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation may actually inflict additional harm, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. Interestingly, administering an antioxidant reverses the brain damage in lab studies.
Brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, known as hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, is [...]

Drinking water disinfected by chlorine while pregnant may increase the risk of having children with heart problems, cleft palate or major brain defects, according to a study published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Environmental Health.
This finding, based on an analysis of nearly 400,000 infants in Taiwan, is the first that links by-products of water [...]