GynoFiles

We have been promotion omega3 consumption and the lowering of stress for pregnant women for a long time. Previous discussions included prevention of baby blues and lowering of depression with the post-partum use of omega-3 supplements . Now there is a way to both prevent stress and give your baby all the benefits of omega-3 consumption at the same time as a new study shows that women who report high-stress situations may benefit from supplements of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), according to a randomized controlled trial published online November 5 and in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology . The ultimate reason for the benefit may in fact be the biological reduction of the stress hormone cortisol output may improve the uterine environment for the developing fetus. Kate Keenan, PhD, professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, Illinois , and colleagues. The investigators measured participants' stress levels through self-report...

Preterm pregnancy remains the leading cause of neonatal death and long-term neurologic disabilities according to a January 2014 article in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The preterm birth rate is lower, but not as low as our national goals said the annual March of Dimes Premature BirthReport Card released in November of 2013. Still about 500,000 premature infants are born in the us, for a staggering $26 billion dollar price tag for their care per year. Babies have about 11% chance of being born prematurely, and we want that under 1/10. In my home state of Illinois, the rate has remained stuck around 12%. California, New York, and Oregon are among states who have reached that goal of under 1/10 babies born premature. the far southern states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are reporting the highest rates of prematurity. In an original research article by Markam et of The Ohio State University has noted that the use of newer more aggressive strategies to use progesterone ...

Danish researchers working with researchers at the University of Barcelona have been studying girls born smaller than average size. They have been studying their body size, their fat cells, their fat hormones like leptin and adiponectin and watching how they develop from birth, to age 2, 4, 6 and 8. Because prior research shows that reduced fetal growth can actually trigger both early puberty, and early onset of adrenal gland maturity, but small ovaries, they have been trying to then determine what happens to their physiology after that.  In a study published in the July 2011 issue of Fertility and Sterility they published the interesting result of a group of about 30 girls. On the surface being born tiny didn't affect their body type much. The girls grew height, they gained muscle and they developed healthy bones at the same rates. But when they looked more closely they saw physiological changes. The fat hormone leptin began to run higher in girls born small, the fa...

There is a long list of maladies attributed to obesity, and I know we all understand that normalizing weight is the best, regardless of what aspect of health we are discussing. And sooner is better than later, as it's as hard to quit chips as it is to quit drags on a cigarette. In an article published in the June 12th 2013 JAM A Swedish researchers have studied over 98% of all births that occurred over a couple years time. These women have optimal prenatal care, virtually all are seen between 8 and 12 weeks of pregnancy. They studied over a million and a half women! Being obese significantly increased the chance of delivering very premature meaning delivering in that 28-31 week range. the risks translated into a very small increase, about 0.2% more patients. Their theories on why have to do with overall immune system and the rates of inflammation that can lead to the cervix weakening. Stress, vaginal bleeding, and infections, as well as smoking all contribute to risks of inflamma...

Excision treatments of the cervix with an electrified loop are called "LEEP procedures. They remove a cone shaped piece of tissue and are used for the diagnosis an treatment of advanced cervical disease. A lot of research has looked into the risk for preterm labor in women who have had a LEEP procedure. But a research group from Washington University in St Louis, in a study presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's 32nd meeting in 2012, decided to look at how the cervix functions during labor itself, asking question if having a LEEP put a woman at risk for c-sections, prematurity (delivering before 34 weeks was defined as prematurity), or whether they had pregnancy losses before 20 weeks. They looked at women who had LEEPs, just pap smears, or pap smears and biopsies for abnormal pap smears. And it did not. This study looked at women over a 7 year period of time, so it was a more intense study than other studies, and they looked at a lot of detail about these w...

Endometriosis is tissue outside the uterus that is anatomically and functionally like the lining of the uterus which is called the endometrium. Once it was thought that if you had endometriosis that you were likely to be infertile, and women with severe endometriosis are mostly not fertile. Women with endometriosis through control of the disease and the use of ovulation treatments are achieving pregnancy in greater and greater numbers. Now we have the newest studies showing that what endometriosis persists in pregnancy may in fact cause a number of pregnancy problems. So again, with pregnancy: the yin and the yang of endometriosis, is something you and your gyno will have to sort out. Have you previously been  told that "pregnancy is a good treatment for endometriosis?" Wow, for those who wanted to become pregnant, that was good news, and a potential two birds with one stone catch because the hope was that you would both achieve pregnancy and be (at least temporarily) reli...

• 1930s Allan Barnes : Menopause is called pathologic, and physicians treated it so • 1976: Climacteric was defined and differentiated from climacteric syndrome, this word has mostly passed from our vocabulary, now replaced by perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause • 2005: State of the Science Panel at the NIH: Experts declared that the symptoms that women get around the time of their life that they undergo menopause are not all related to the hormonal changes. They felt that there was strong evidence for the vasomotor symptoms (hot flashes) and vaginal dryness being caused by the lack of estrogen, and moderately good evidence that menopause is cause of sleep disturbances, and in spite of some studies to the contrary that there was only poor evidence for the psychological changes women get at this time to actually be due to menopause symptoms. The topic continues to be debated. • Now the debate is raging on and scientific papers have been coming in at a fierce pace: SWAN ...

Technology or the Human Gyno Examiner? The touch of your physician or do you need an ultrasound to figure out what is going on in the case of the health of your cervix in pregnancy? Apparently over 1000 studies have tried to answer the question in one form or an other. Another expert has weighed in with a new series. Dr. Vincenzo Bergehella in a recent editorial in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology got to boast that in the 1990s his mere curiosity regarding measuring cervical lengths in pregnant women now has become a valuable tool and perhaps the next step to solving the problem of prematurity that still plagues maternity wards worldwide. We know that women should have 2.5 cm of cervical length in the middle of the midtrimester (so around 20 weeks say). Cervix that are shorter than this will be found about 10% of the time. By touch about 3/4 of these short cervix will feel just fine. So the touch of your gyno is apparently fooled, at least according to one research ...