Pregnancy and Birth

Shorter birth intervals can up the odds for preterm delivery, suggesting that women at risk for preterm labor receive special counseling about birth spacing.

Pre-planning is key to achieving the most optimal clinical outcomes for patients with multiple challenging risk factors or individual characteristics.

Challenge your anatomy skills: Can you identify the spinal structure?

The rate of sexual assault among female veterans is high, and the criminal act has pronounced associations with infertility, abortion, and childlessness.

Challenge your diagnostic skills: What’s odd about this 16-week pregnancy?

New research shows that high cholesterol levels in both men and women can impact the time it takes to achieve pregnancy.

The correct response to oligohydramnios and polyhydramnios hinges on timing, severity, and comorbidity.

Postabortal placental polyps and uterine arteriovenous malformations can look identical on ultrasonography. Read how saline instillation sonohysterography helped discern the diagnosis.

Informed consent is more than just a signed consent form, says ethics blogger Paul Burcher, MD, PhD, who weighs in on a different way to think about this practice.

The extent and timing of maternal depression is being underestimated, according to new research, highlighting the need for improvement in maternal depression screening.

To help combat iodine deficiency in pregnant and breastfeeding women, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that these women take iodine supplements.

Daily vitamin C may offer some protection to the respiratory health of infants whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, a newly published study reported.

New research may have found a way to better predict whether women with threatened preterm labor are in true labor or false labor.

Challenge your diagnostic skills: Can you identify this finding in the fetal abdomen?

Sexual violence on college campuses may be more prevalent than you think. Are you asking patients the right questions about their sexual health?

A study of a nationally representative sample of hospitalized women who were pregnant or gave birth shows a link between obstructive sleep apnea and maternal death. The findings, published in SLEEP, point to a need for targeted interventions to improve pregnancy outcomes in women with apnea.

Challenge your diagnostic skills: Can you identify this finding in the fetal chest?

New research shows that obstetricians may need to rethink how they screen certain patients for gestational diabetes mellitus.

Maternal deaths related to childbirth in the US are nearly at the highest rate in a quarter century, and we’re just 1 of 8 countries to experience an increase.

A routine ultrasound exam of a 28-week fetus revealed what looked to be a cystic lesion. The addition of Doppler, however, changed the diagnostic picture.

Taking omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in pregnancy doesn’t make your offspring smarter but does make preterm delivery less likely.

Is labor induction or expectant management better in term or post-term pregnancies? The findings from a new meta-analysis offer some insight.

New research finds that obstetricians may be overlooking an at-risk group for implementing stillbirth prevention strategies.

This case report features an underappreciated clinical entity-angular pregnancy. What do you know about this rare obstetric complication?

“The c-section you do today impacts the future health of the woman you’re caring for.” So said Aaron B. Caughey, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, in his lunch-and-learn “The Cesarean Epidemic: Etiologies, Outcomes and Potential Solutions” on Monday. What’s more, he pointed out, “the c-section you do today leads to the repeat … [which] leads to the repeat … [which] leads to the accreta in 8 years.” But Caughey did not place blame for the so-called epidemic with either doctors or patients.

New research shows when it’s cost-effective to use placental alpha-microglobulin-1 over pooling, nitrazine, and ferning for diagnosing premature rupture of membranes.

Challenge your diagnostic skills: Can you identify this anomaly of the fetal face and brain?

Skin closure after a cesarean delivery is quicker with the use of staples, but are patients satisfied with the results of this closure method?

New research presented at ACOG 2014 shows that inadequate weight gain in the second trimester is an independent risk factor for spontaneous preterm birth.

Proposed changes aim to reduce prematurity rates by relieving financial pressures that lead to choosing treatments more likely to result in multiple gestations.