OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and factors associated with episiotomy in a reference center of Pernambuco. METHODS A retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out from January to December 2006 with 495 women who had a normal delivery at the Maternity Center Monteiro de Moraes Integrated Health Amaury de Medeiros (CISAM) University of Pernambuco. Assessed factors were issues prece...

BACKGROUND Deformational plagiocephaly is cranial asymmetry caused by external forces on the skull. Deformational plagiocephaly is seen in 5% to 48% of healthy newborns. Incomplete uvular fusion, in contrast, is one of many uvular malformations. The incidence of all degrees of incomplete uvular fusion is approximately 1% in healthy children. Bifid uvula is a malformation that is often considere...

BACKGROUND Episiotomy is the surgical enlargement of the vaginal orifice by an incision of the perineum during the second stage of labor or just before delivery of the baby. During the 1970s, it was common to perform an episiotomy for almost all women having their first delivery, ostensibly for prevention of severe perineum tears and easier subsequent repair. However, there are no data availabl...

OBJECTIVE To assess the physical activity levels of pregnant women and to examine the characteristics associated with the practice of exercise and the activities of daily living during pregnancy. METHODS For this cross-sectional study, 1,279 women were recruited within 72 hours postpartum. They were interviewed about their socio-demographic data and obstetric history and were administered sel...

OBJECTIVE Postpartum anxiety screening does not typically occur, despite changes in life roles and responsibility after childbirth. We sought to determine the prevalence of postpartum anxiety during the maternity hospitalization and its associations with maternal and child outcomes. We further aimed to compare correlates of anxiety with correlates of depression. METHODS For a randomized contr...

OBJECTIVE To determine the risk factors for neonatal encephalopathy among term infants in a developing country. DESIGN Unmatched case-control study. SETTING Principal maternity hospital of Kathmandu, Nepal. SUBJECTS All 131 infants with neonatal encephalopathy from a population of 21 609 infants born over an 18 month period, and 635 unmatched infants systematically recruited over 12 month...

BACKGROUND The effects of prenatal Zinc Deficiency (ZD) and Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) on birthweight are controversial and their interaction has not been investigated. OBJECTIVE To assess the independent and interaction effects of prenatal zinc and vitamin A deficiencies on birthweight in rural Sidama, Southern Ethiopia. METHODOLOGY A community-based prospective cohort study design was emp...

Bypassing health facilities for childbirth can be costly both for women and health systems. There have been some reports on this from Sub-Saharan African and from Nepal but none from India. India has implemented the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a large national conditional cash transfer program which has successfully increased the number of institutional births in India. This paper aims to stu...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this analysis was to quantify the risk factors associated with maternal morbidity among women in Victoria, Australia, focusing particularly on sociodemographic factors. DESIGN Case-control analysis. PARTICIPANTS Data on all maternities in Victoria from 1 January 2006 to 31 December 2008. METHODS A case-control analysis was conducted using unconditional logistic regre...

BACKGROUND The consequences of maternal HIV infection for fetal growth are controversial. Here, we estimated the frequency of small for gestational age and gender (SGAG) among neonates born to HIV-infected or uninfected mothers and assessed the contribution, if any, of maternal HIV to the risk of SGAG. METHODS The data used were obtained from the ANRS-Pediacam cohort in Cameroon. Pairs of new...