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Study: Stress during pregnancy leads to Premature Birth

Posted on August 12, 2014

Research from the University of Lethbridge has suggested that high stress levels during pregnancy might lead to premature births in future generations. This could help explain the high number of premature births that some regions have. The study is not suggesting that the stress to premature pregnancy effect is immediate, but rather that it means the daughters of stressed women will have a higher risk of a shortened pregnancy.

The hypothesis has been drawn up after researchers observed the birthing behavior of rats. When the rats were put in stressful situations during the late stages of pregnancy, they gave birth at the normal time. However, the offspring of the stressed rats had shorter pregnancies and therefore a higher number of their own babies were born before what would be considered a normal gestation period was up.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) up to 15 million babies are born prematurely every year. This is approximately one in every 10. Scientists have seen that chemical exposure may influence this, but are now beginning to understand that stress also plays a large role.

Gerlinde Metz, professor of neuroscience, explains that once the “footprint” of stress can be better understood, the risk of pre-term birth can be accessed in future generations. This allows for prediction of shorter pregnancies and intervention should it be required in order to keep mother and baby safe.

According to Metz, stress can alter genes. Stressed out pregnant ladies can pass on these altered genes to their daughters. This is why in the rat experiments it was the daughters of the stressed mother rats who showed shorter pregnancies. The research suggests that the same could be true in humans, and this might explain why in some areas of the world, more pre-term births are seen than others

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Study: Playing Video Games is good for kids, but not too much

Posted on August 4, 2014

Children who play video games for up to an hour a day are less hyperactive, more social and happier than those who don’t play at all, according to an Oxford University study.

The results contradict widespread concerns that video game use by kids is harmful.

The study, appearing in the journal Pediatrics, looked at boys and girls between 10 and 15 years old and found that playing for as much as an hour a day could actually be beneficial.

The study focused on almost 5,000 kids and compared those who didn’t play at all with those who indulged in console games such as Nintendo Wii and Sony Play Stations, or computer-based games.

“Young people who indulged in a little video game-playing were associated with being better adjusted than those who had never played or those who were on video games for three hours or more,” the study concluded.

“Those who played video games for less than an hour … were associated with the highest levels of sociability and were most likely to say they were satisfied with their lives. They also appeared to have fewer friendship and emotional problems, and reported less hyperactivity than the other groups.”

Those who played such games for up to three hours a day seemed to show no effects, positive or negative.

But those who played for more than three hours a day did see some harmful effects.

“Games provide a wide range of novel cognitive challenges, opportunities for exploration, relaxation and socialization with peers,” the researchers observed. “Like non-digitally mediated forms of child play, games may encourage child well-being and healthy social adjustment.”

h/t CBS News.

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STUDY: Pregnant Smoking Alters Baby’s genes

Posted on July 31, 2014

A new study concludes that smoking while pregnant actually alters the genes of the baby. The CounselHealth.com wrote:

Smoking during pregnancy could cause epigenetic changes in the fetus, causing birth defects and health problems later in life, a new study has found.
According to the study, newborn children of mothers who smoked while pregnant are more likely to have experienced certain changes to their DNA than newborn children of non-smokers.
Children exposed to tobacco smoke in utero have a higher risk of birth defects and are more likely to suffer from some medical problems than the children of women who did not smoke while pregnant, the press release further added.
The study also added that the difference between the children of smokers and the children of non-smokers continues into adulthood.

Researchers are yet to explain what causes these problems, but earlier studies have suggested that exposure to toxins in tobacco smoke could cause changes to the DNA of the developing fetus.
Researchers studied blood samples from 889 newborns of which 287 had mothers who reported smoking in the first trimester of pregnancy. The study found a link between maternal smoking and altered methylation in 110 gene regions.

The study has been published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

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Study: Pregnancy loss linked to heart disease later

Posted on July 19, 2014

Miscarriages and stillbirths might be a marker for women at higher risk of developing heart disease later in life, an observational study suggested.

The study suggests that physicians should now include stillbirth or miscarriage on their list of items to ask about in screening for cardiovascular disease.

Coronary heart disease risk was 27% higher for women who had a history of stillbirth compared with none (multivariate adjusted odds ratio 1.27, 95% CI 1.07-1.51), Donna R. Parker, ScD, of Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island in Pawtucket, and colleagues found.

That risk was a significant 18% to 19% elevated among women with one or two prior miscarriages compared with none in an analysis of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) observational cohort appearing in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

“Women with a history of one or more stillbirths or one or more miscarriages appear to be at increased risk of future cardiovascular disease and should be considered candidates for closer surveillance and/or early intervention,” they urged.

The American Heart Association guidelines already include pregnancy complications as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease in women due to growing evidence for an association, but these don’t address long-term cardiovascular implications of pregnancy loss, the group pointed out.

Physicians should now include stillbirth or miscarriage on their list of items to ask about in screening for cardiovascular disease, argued Roxana Mehran, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who was not involved in the study.

“This is so important because the prevalence of pregnancy loss is increasing as the [average] age of women who are becoming pregnant is increasing,” she told MedPage Today.

Women with a history of pregnancy loss perhaps should be screened earlier, agreed Mehran, the founding and immediate past chair of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions’ Women in Innovations program, working with ob/gyns to promote screening women for cardiovascular risk factors.

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Study: Flu shot in mom when pregnant immunizes baby too later

Posted on July 11, 2014

Most doctors do not recommend flu shots to pregnant patients, yet those women are more likely to develop serious complications if they do get the flu, according to a new report.

In the review of past studies, researchers also found that pregnant women had concerns about the safety of the flu vaccine and tended to underestimate the risk that the virus posed to themselves and their fetuses.

“The research is clear that health care providers are not providing advice to pregnant women about the importance and benefits of getting vaccinated,” said Dr. Marie Tarrant, who worked on the study at Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

“In addition, they are not making influenza vaccine available to their pregnant clients,” she said. “By their silence, they are sending a message that influenza vaccine is actually not that important.”

One study found pregnant women were five times as likely to be admitted to hospital with the flu as other women, Tarrant said.

Flu vaccines given to pregnant women immunize them and protect their infants against the flu until they are six months old, the researchers write in the journal Vaccine.

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Study: Working Moms’ kids come out same as kids of stay-at-home moms

Posted on July 8, 2014

Phew! A recent study reveals that children of working mothers born since the mid-1990s are not different in behavior or social skills than children of stay-at-home moms.

The University of London Centre for Longitudinal Study found that changes in maternity leave, greater availability of quality childcare and flexible work hours make it easier for mothers to have balance.

Further, Pew Research data notes that although women work more outside the home than 50 years ago, they still spend more time with their children that moms from the 1960s, and twice as much as fathers today.

“Look at the things your child is getting because you work: They’re getting a role model; they’re getting exposure to other environments and other care-givers; they’re getting the confidence that they will be OK without their mom being there every single second of the day,” Bethesda, Maryland pediatrician Dana Kornfeld told WTOP.com.

So there you have, it ladies. No need to feel guilty about having to go out to bring home the bacon. Your kids will be and are fine.

photo: Thinkstock

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Study: Women who have babies after 33 live longer

Posted on June 26, 2014

Women who have kids after 33 are twice as likely to live to 95 or older than those who stopped having babies before age 30, a new Boston University School of Medicine study found.

“Of course this does not mean women should wait to have children at older ages in order to improve their own chances of living longer,” study co-author Thomas Perls, a professor of medicine at BU said. “The natural ability to have a child at an older age likely indicates that a woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly, and therefore so is the rest of her body.”

Researchers of the study published in the journal Menopause said the link exists because gene variations that enable women to have babies by natural means at a later age may also be tied to living longer lives.

“If a woman has those variants, she is able to reproduce and bear children for a longer period of time, increasing her chances of passing down those genes to the next generation,” Perls said.

This is the last of a series of studies that netted similar findings. An earlier study from the New England Centenarian Study found that women who had children after the age of 40 were four times more likely to live to 100 than women who had their last child at a younger age.

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Study: Placenta cells may curb Preeclampsia Stroke risk

Posted on June 18, 2014

Researchers are conducting tests to see if cells from baby’s placenta can be used to treat preeclampsia, a serious pregnancy complication.

Preeclampsia is one of the leading killers of pregnant women in the U.S. and around the world, and occurs in 3-5% of pregnancies in the U.S. In severe cases the disease can cause strokes, seizures, and even the death of a pregnant woman or her baby.

The only cure for preeclampsia is delivery. The disease can start in mid- pregnancy so a very early delivery may be needed to save the life of the mother. Preterm delivery can negatively impact an infant’s health across her lifespan. Preeclampsia is actually responsible for 12% of preterm births in the U.S.

Until recently it was thought that preeclampsia had no long term effects on a woman’s health after she delivered. This February, however, the American Heart Association & American Stroke Association announced that women who had a history of preeclampsia had twice the risk of stroke and four times the risk of developing high blood pressure even decades after their pregnancies.

Right now there are no cures and scientists do not completely understand the causes of preeclampsia, although abnormal development and function of the placenta are thought to play a central role.

Doctors can sometimes treat symptoms but no treatments stop the progress of the disease. There are few ongoing clinical trials to evaluate potential treatments. Novartis and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development each have an ongoing study.

A new trial is being designed by Pluristem Therapeutics to test a placenta-based cell therapy for treatment of preeclampsia. Pluristem takes cells from the placenta, which is generally discarded after birth, and expands and modulates them in 3 dimensional bioreactors. The therapeutic cells produced in their manufacturing facility are injected into muscle where they secrete proteins which could potentially treat preeclampsia. The first human trial of this treatment is expected to begin towards the end of the year.

The US Preventive Services Task Force and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommend giving low dose aspirin to pregnant women with specific high risk factors for developing preeclampsia because it reduces their chance of developing the disease by 24%.

Many women who develop preeclampsia have no identifiable risk factors, however, and with 75% of treated women still developing the disease, preeclampsia remains a significant unmet medical need that needs to be addressed with research and development of therapies. A treatment, whether it be a drug or a cell therapy, would have a significant impact on the health of pregnant women and their children worldwide.

Karine Kleinhaus, MD, MPH, is Divisional VP, North-America at Pluristem Therapeutics. She has worked with multiple public and private biotechnology companies on both public and investor relations. Prior to that, she was an assistant professor in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine. At NYU, Dr. Kleinhaus conducted medical research funded under a multi-year NIH grant. She published more than 25 papers in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the Annals of the New York Academy of Science, American Journal of Medical Genetics, and the American Journal of Epidemiology. Before that Dr. Kleinhaus practiced obstetrics and then completed two fellowships at Columbia University.

Dr. Kleinhaus received her medical degree from Tel Aviv University, earned a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and a bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Princeton University.

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Driving While Pregnant: 2nd Trimester pregnant women more likely to get in car crash, study says

Posted on May 19, 2014

So “Driving While Pregnant” is a thing.

New research published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests that women who are in their second trimester of pregnancy are 42% more likely to get involved in a serious multi-car crash.

The data impacted all groups of pregnant second-trimester women across different socioeconomic and racial groups.

Researchers stopped short of recommending that pregnant women not drive but instead warned that they should be extra mindful of the risk while driving.

“It amounts to about 1 in 50 statistical risk of the average women having a motor vehicle crash at some point during her pregnancy,” Donald Redelmeier of the University of Toronto said in a release.

Report: Substance abuse during pregnancy is on the rise

Posted on May 17, 2014

The prevalence of substance abuse during pregnancy is shocking, said Dr. Peter Lachiewicz, Western Ohio OB/GYN. Between 30 and 40 percent of pregnant Western Ohio OB/GYN patients are suspected of using drugs, tobacco and/or alcohol.

Tennessee is awaiting its governor’s signature on a bill (HB 1295) which recently passed through both sides of Tennessee’s Congress that will criminalize pregnant women for “assaultive offenses” if a child is born “addicted to or harmed by” the mother’s illegal drug use.

“A year ago, the Tennessee Senate, House and governor defeated the bill. So, it’s surprising that now this legislation was passed, despite 100 percent non-approval by physicians and the medical community,” Dr. Lachiewicz reflected. “I talked to a colleague of mine in Tennessee, these women will not seek prenatal care, and then just show up at the end. Or they’re going to tell a lot of lies. Or, like we see here [in Darke County], most drug testing we do through a urine – just like employers do random toxicology screens – just like here, they ‘can’t’ give a urine specimen.”

Dr. Lachiewicz estimated that 30-40 percent of the 250-350 births his practice performs each year are to patients who used some sort of drug during their pregnancy; and some women, he said, don’t even attempt to quit. Those who do wish to quit, do not have access to local resources, because there aren’t any, Lachiewicz noted.

“If you look at what’s out there – you don’t want to say everybody’s doing it, but if you have 30-40 percent of our pregnant moms using, that’s kind of concerning,” Dr. Lachiewicz commented.

“The community leaders in Greenville and Darke County talk about ‘What are we going to do? How do we help these women? etc.’ The resources are just not there. So these women, even if they want to stop – and we just had one who made the decision to go to Columbus on her own – these women really tend to fall through the cracks. And others have no desire to stop.”

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