BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to characterize the maternal dimensions of anxiety, depression and prenatal attachment in women undergoing an amniocentesis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A prospective observational study was conducted. Women were referred to early amniocentesis for increased nuchal translucency, elevated biochemical markers or advanced maternal age. All participants had ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of a Taegyo program on parents-fetal attachment and parenthood in first pregnancy couples (mothers and spouses). METHODS The research design was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest experiment. Study participants were 52 first pregnancy couples visiting two medium-scale obstetrics and gynecology clinics located in Gwangju....

Oxytocin (OT), a nanopeptide hormone, plays a role in the emergence of maternal behavior, yet few studies examined OT in humans across pregnancy and the postpartum. We followed healthy women at three points: first trimester of pregnancy, third trimester, and first postpartum month. Plasma OT levels showed high individual stability. A third of the sample showed consistent OT levels, whereas othe...

Significant spontaneous fetal loss of unknown cause occurs in North American commercial swine. About 30% of conceptuses, thought to be genetically normal, are lost during the peri-attachment period. An additional 20% are lost at mid-pregnancy. Littermate endometrial and trophoblast biopsies were studied by quantitative real-time PCR for gene expression, and immunohistochemistry for protein expr...

background: free fetal dna (ffd) in maternal plasma/serum has increasingly become the source of fetal material for diagnostic purposes in recent years. this source of fetal material can be used for sex determination. rh typing paternally inherited sequences and compound heterozygosity. reports on the lack of consistent pcr amplification of y-chromosome sequences of ffd in maternal plasma/serum ...