Pregnant Adult

Neonatal Death

Happy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:26:56 +0000

Infant deaths (neonatal deaths from birth to 28 days, or perinatal deaths if including fetal deaths at 28 weeks gestation and later) are around 1% in modernized countries. The “natural” mortality rate of childbirth—where nothing is done to avert maternal death—has been estimated as being between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths per 100,000 births.

The most important factors affecting mortality in childbirth are adequate nutrition and access to quality medical care (”access” is affected both by the cost of available care, and distance from health services). “Medical care” in this context does not refer specifically to treatment in hospitals, but simply routine prenatal care and the presence, at the birth, of an attendant with birthing skills.

A 1983-1989 study by the Texas Department of Health highlighted the differences in neonatal mortality (NMR) between high risk and low risk pregnancies. NMR was 0.57% for doctor-attended high risk births, and 0.19% for low risk births attended by non-nurse midwives. Conversely, some studies demonstrate a higher perinatal mortality rate with assisted home births. Around 80% of pregnancies are low-risk. Factors that may make a birth high risk include prematurity, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes and a previous cesarean section.

Source: Wikipedia

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Drugs in Pregnancy

Happy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:24:48 +0000

Drugs used during pregnancy can have temporary or permanent effects on the fetus. Therefore many physicians would prefer not to prescribe for pregnant women, the major concern being over teratogenicity of the drugs. This results in inappropriate treatment of pregnant women. Use of drugs in pregnancy is not always wrong. For example, high fever is harmful for the fetus in the early months. Use of paracetamol is better than no treatment at all. Also, diabetes mellitus during pregnancy may need intensive therapy with insulin. Drugs have been classified into categories A,B,C,D and X based on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rating system to provide therapeutic guidance based on potential benefits and fetal risks. Drugs like multivitamins that have demonstrated no fetal risks after controlled studies in humans are classified as Category A. On the other hand drugs like thalidomide with proven fetal risks that outweigh all benefits are classified as Category X.

Source: Wikipedia

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Pregnancy Terminology

Happy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:23:07 +0000

One scientific term for the state of pregnancy is gravid, and a pregnant female is sometimes referred to as a gravida. Neither word is used in common speech. Similarly, the term “parity” (abbreviated as “para”) is used for the number of previous successful live births. Medically, a woman who has never been pregnant is referred to as a “nulligravida”, a woman who is (or has been only) pregnant for the first time as a “primigravida”, and a woman in subsequent pregnancies as a multigravida or “multiparous”. Hence, during a second pregnancy a woman would be described as “gravida 2, para 1″ and upon live delivery as “gravida 2, para 2″. An in-progress pregnancy, as well as abortions, miscarriages, or stillbirths account for parity values being less than the gravida number, whereas a multiple birth will increase the parity value. Women who have never carried a pregnancy achieving more than 20 weeks of gestation age are referred to as “nulliparous”. The medical term for a woman who is pregnant for the first time is primigravida.

The term embryo is used to describe the developing offspring during the first 8 weeks following conception, and the term fetus is used from about 2 months of development until birth.

In many societies’ medical or legal definitions, human pregnancy is somewhat arbitrarily divided into three trimester periods, as a means to simplify reference to the different stages of prenatal development. The first trimester carries the highest risk of miscarriage (natural death of embryo or fetus). During the second trimester, the development of the fetus can be more easily monitored and diagnosed. The beginning of the third trimester often approximates the point of viability, or the ability of the fetus to survive, with or without medical help, outside of the uterus.

Source: Wikipedia