Category: pregnancy

MEwens
A few extra weeks of gestation can mean a lot to the health of a newborn.
That message has increasingly been pushed by groups seeking to highlight the complications (and expense) that can ensue when a baby is electively delivered before 39 weeks without a medical reason.
A new report out today suggests that getting […]

MEwens
Questioning a Radiation Technique: Accelerated partial-breast irradiation — a treatment used following a lumpectomy for early-stage breast cancer –  is under scrutiny following two recent studies, the WSJ reports. The technique shortens treatment time and reduces total radiation exposure, but one study links it with a higher risk of mastectomy within five years, […]

MEwens
Teen birth rates in the U.S. have been generally declining since 1991, but are still higher than in other developed countries.
Now, new stats from the CDC show that about half of teen moms who got pregnant unintentionally weren’t using any form of birth control at the time of conception. The survey also asked […]

MEwens
The FDA is casting a skeptical eye on evidence backing a gel being proposed to prevent preterm birth in women with a short cervix.
As Dow Jones Newswires reports, one of the agency’s outside advisory panels is due to consider that use of the gel — already approved for certain women undergoing infertility treatments […]

MEwens
Antibiotics in Livestock: The FDA said it will ban the use of antibiotics called cephalosporins to prevent disease in livestock, though the drugs can still be used to treat illnesses in the animals, the WSJ reports. The agency — and other experts — are concerned that over- or misuse of the drugs can […]

MEwens
Earlier this year the WSJ reported on new research suggesting that a hormone gel can help certain women at risk of preterm birth and its subsequent complications. That study, by the National Institutes of Health, found that using a progesterone gel in women with a short cervix cut the rate of early preterm […]

Katherine Hobson
Earlier this year the WSJ reported on new research suggesting that a hormone gel can help certain women at risk of preterm birth and its subsequent complications. That study, by the National Institutes of Health, found that using a progesterone gel in women with a short cervix cut the rate of early […]

MEwens
The goal is to be able to identify women at risk and intervene to prevent stillbirths.
Each year in the U.S. there are nearly as many stillbirths — defined as fetal death at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later — as there are infant deaths.
Answers to some of the questions about stillbirth are revealed […]

MEwens
Drug Hospitalizations: New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that blood thinners and diabetes drugs were among the medications most commonly linked to hospitalizations of adults aged 65 and up for adverse drug reactions and accidental overdoses, the WSJ reports. A study author tells the WSJ that dosages for […]

MEwens
Two More Deaths Recorded: The CDC says listeria-tainted cantaloupes from a Colorado farm have now sickened at least 116 people, killing 23 of them, CNN reports. The cantaloupes were recalled by Jensen Farms last month, but the infection can take up to two months to produce symptoms, which means the number of cases […]