I t was while working as a postdoc in Germany tracking proteins and RNA in cells that molecular biologist Sascha Drewlo first became fascinated by the placenta, the organ that supports a developing fetus. In 2007, he went to Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto to work with John Kingdom, an obstetrician who treated high-risk pregnancies and ran a medical center focused on studying and treating place...

OBJECTIVE Rates of vertical HIV transmission between mother and child are low, allowing many HIV positive women to have children with near impunity. In this study, data from the Swiss Mother and Child HIV Cohort Study were used to describe maternal characteristics and their association with pregnancy outcomes in HIV positive women. STUDY DESIGN HIV positive women were followed prospectively d...

Understanding pathophysiology and identifying mothers at risk of major pregnancy complications is vital to effective prevention and optimal management. However, in current antenatal care, understanding of pathophysiology of complications is limited. In gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), risk prediction is mostly based on maternal history and clinical risk factors and may not optimally identif...

Post term pregnancy (PTP) is one of the commonest obstetric conditions. Pregnancy is called term when it lies between 37 completed weeks to 42 completed weeks (259 to 294 days) from the last menstrual period. If the pregnancy exceeds this period (above 42 completed weeks) it is classified as post term pregnancy. The over all incidence of PTP is 10.0% of all pregnancies. The incidence of PTP var...

background: a recent study at the maroua provincial hospital revealed that hypertension in pregnancy was the first cause of maternal death, representing 17.5% of the 63 maternal deaths recorded between 2003 and 2005. knowing little about the causes, this study was to identify the possible risk factors for hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. methods: this case-control study was-done at the maro...

A cross-sectional study was carried out in Mkuranga District of Tanzania with the aim of comparing the ability of trained and untrained traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in identifying women with danger signs for developing complications during pregnancy and childbirth as well as their referral practices. Study findings revealed that majority of the TBAs (86.5%) had not received any training....

A maternal-fetal medicine (MFM) subspecialist has advanced knowledge of the medical, surgical, obstetrical, fetal, and genetic complications of pregnancy and their effects on both the mother and fetus. MFM subspecialists are complementary to obstetric care providers in providing consultations, co-management, or transfer of care for complicated patients before, during, and after pregnancy. The M...

background: infertility is common among couples of child-bearing age and ap-proximately half of known causes of primary infertility are attributable to male factor. it is still unclear whether the injurious effects of cigarette smoking on sperm characteristics and infertility are due to nicotine. therefore, the present study investigated the effects of orally administered of nicotine on sperm c...