Maternal body weight and pregnancy outcome

Article Abstract:

It has been established that obese women have more stillborn babies and children who die as newborns than women who are not obese. Researchers have assumed that the adverse effects of obesity are indirect and are actually due to the association of obesity with hypertension, diabetes, twins, and excessive infant birth weight; all of these conditions increase the risk to the infant. While there has been concern about maternal obesity, researchers have not considered the possibility that maternal pre-pregnancy weight is systematically related to infant mortality across the entire range of body weights, from thin to obese mothers. Recently, a large study found that mortality of preterm infants increased progressively as maternal body weight increased. However, this study did not consider other health problems or demographic or lifestyle factors that might also affect infant mortality. Such factors were analyzed in the current study of the relationship between maternal pre-pregnancy body weight and the outcome of pregnancy. A total of 56,857 infants were included. The perinatal (just before, during, and right after birth) mortality increased progressively from 37 per 1,000 in babies of thin mothers to 121 per 1,000 in babies with obese mothers; this effect was highly significant. The factors that contributed most to the increase in mortality with increasing maternal weight were preterm birth, maternal diabetes, older mothers, birth defects, and twins; some of these factors are linked to maternal body weight. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Health aspects, Risk factors, Overweight persons, Pregnant women, Infant mortality, Pregnancy, Complications of, Pregnancy complications, Perinatal death

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Cardiac hypertrophy in chronically anemic fetal sheep: increased vascularization is associated with increased myocardial expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and hypoxia-inducible factor 1

Article Abstract:

Chronically inadequate oxygenation of the fetal heart appears to induce ventricular enlargement and increased blood vessel development. Researchers deprived fetal sheep of oxygen by diluting their blood. Oxygen-deprived, or hypoxic, hearts were bigger, had larger capillaries, and denser capillary networks than the hearts of fetuses normally oxygenated. Vascular endothelial growth factor and hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha protein levels were higher in the ventricles of hearts deprived of oxygen. Oxygen deprivation may cause compensatory changes in the fetal heart.

Growth factors, Vascular endothelium, Fetal heart

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Determination of the timing of fetal brain damage from hypoxemia-ischemia

Article Abstract:

Doctors may be able to estimate approximately when fetal brain damage from low oxygen and low blood levels occurs. This method measures the level of certain blood cells, such as lymphocytes platelets.

Research, Brain damage

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