Obstetrics

Alcohol and tobacco use throughout the first trimester of pregnancy was associated with nearly 3 times the risk of late stillbirth (at 28 or more weeks), compared to women who neither drank alcohol nor smoked during pregnancy or quit both before the end of the first trimester.

An analysis of registry data from more than 2.4 million births in Denmark suggests those born to mothers with diabetes were 39% more likely to experience high refractive error before turning 25 years old.

The smell and taste of food are important to digestion and growth. Does providing preterm infants with the smell and taste of milk at feeding times lead to better weight and measurement results?

A recent study published in JAMA details increasing rates of gestational diabetes among first-time mothers in the US from 2011-2019, with rates increasing across all racial/ethnic subgroups examined in the 12 million person analysis.

“We have refined how to diagnose women with early pregnancy loss, but noted a gap in our understanding of the optimal way to care for these women,” Barnhart told Contemporary OB/GYN®.

Fact vs myth when it comes to babies breathing during breastfeeding.

August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. Join us throughout the month as we share statistics, facts, patient and provider resources, and more.

Pregnant women who had cancer previously or currently have cancer were more likely to experience comorbidities and in-hospital complications, depending on cancer type.

While pregnancy rates fell at the beginning of the pandemic, researchers expect a birth volume increase based on prospective modeling.

The first months of life set the course of a child’s health. How effective is an intervention at improving weight outcomes in the infant and use of postpartum care by the mother?

August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. Join us throughout the month as we share statistics, facts, patient and provider resources, and more.

NIH recently convened an expert panel to develop standardized criteria to define placental COVID-19 infection.

Even with these recommendations, women commonly ask questions about alcohol consumption and breastfeeding such as “Should I pump and dump if I have a glass of wine?” and “Do I just wait until it has passed through my system?” This month, experts Susan Crowe, MD, and Tricia Wright, MD, MS, provide the needed insight—with as much data as are available on this topic.

The CDC updated its guidelines for diagnosing and treating STIs, which included updates on the diagnosis and treatment of bacterial vaginosis (BV) in pregnant and nonpregnant women.

Celebrated annually by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), World Breastfeeding Week is a global campaign to raise awareness and galvanize action on themes related to breastfeeding.

What are the impacts of alcohol use during lactation?

Among women with opioid use disorder (OUD) at high risk for unintended pregnancy, onsite contraceptive services coupled with financial incentives to attend follow-up visits to assess contraceptive satisfaction was a significantly more efficacious and cost-beneficial intervention than without incentives or with usual care, according to a prospective randomized clinical trial in JAMA Psychiatry.

Despite current recommendations to perform a fetal echocardiogram in all in vitro fertilization (IVF) pregnancies, recent study findings show that may not be necessary.

As more extremely preterm infants survive delivery, a study examines whether the advances that allowed for that survival also improve neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Clinicians should carefully consider using noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) for the screening of chromosomal abnormalities in twin pregnancies because the combined positive predictive value (PPV) is limited and the screening efficiency is not stable, according to a prospective study.

Despite the inadvisability of performing early amniocentesis (EA) before 15 gestational weeks due to a high rate of miscarriage, a retrospective cohort study has found no significant difference in the procedure-related risk of miscarriage between EA, at around 14 weeks gestation, and mid-trimester amniocentesis (MA).

The path to transformational leadership.

Nearly 1 in 5 Black women and 1 in 6 Latina women who experience gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) during pregnancy are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within only 8 years postpartum, according to a study poster at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) virtual conference.

The penalties of deception can be much worse than medical negligence.

A report in Pediatrics offered information on the clinical presentation, prevalence, and outcomes of a simultaneous serious bacterial infection with mastitis.

His mother’s past medical history is significant for preeclampsia, previous opiate, and cocaine abuse, and current tobacco use, and she was incarcerated during the pregnancy. What's the diagnosis?

A recent study shows that abnormal development is controlled by the genetics of the fetus and placenta, rather than the intrauterine environment.

Refer to this visual summary from SMFM wherever you practice.

“Opioids affect placental development and function in animal models, but human data on their association with ischemic placental disease are limited,” wrote the authors.

Despite the umbilical artery (UA) Doppler pulsatility index being used to detect elevated fetoplacental vascular resistance, the metric is confounded by variation in fetal cardiac function and is only moderately predictive of placental pathology.