Kishwar Azad and Anthony Costello suggest the use of extreme caution in scaling up of antenatal corticosteroid treatment in low-income settings. They raise three important questions with respect to the effi cacy, safety, and the appropriate gestational age at which to give corticosteroids to patients in low-income countries. Firstly, in terms of efficacy, there is high-quality evidence on the b...

The administration of antenatal glucocorticoids to women in preterm labour confers clear and significant benefits on perinatal outcomes, decreasing the incidence of respiratory distress syndrome and intraventricular hemorrhage in preterm babies, thereby reducing rates of mortality and morbidity. However, there is an evolving body of research addressing the non-pulmonary consequences of antenata...

Antenatal hydronephrosis and vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) are common renal tract birth defects. We recently showed that disruption of the Robo2 gene is associated with VUR in humans and antenatal hydronephrosis in knockout mice. However, the natural history, causal relationship and developmental origins of these clinical conditions remain largely unclear. Although the hydronephrosis phenotype in...

OBJECTIVES To determine if insensible water loss (IWL) differed between infants exposed or not exposed antenatally to corticosteroids and to explore possible mechanisms for the early postnatal diuresis associated with antenatal steroid exposure. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data. SETTING Level three neonatal intensive care unit. PATIENTS Ninety six infants, med...

BACKGROUND Maternal experience of childhood maltreatment and maternal antenatal depression are both associated with offspring childhood maltreatment and offspring adjustment problems. We have investigated the relative impact of maternal childhood maltreatment and exposure to depression in utero on offspring maltreatment and psychopathology. METHOD The sample included 125 families from the Sou...

BACKGROUND Untreated maternal syphilis is strongly associated with adverse birth outcomes, especially in women with high titre syphilis. The WHO recommends routine serological screening in pregnancy. Some workers have advised a reappraisal of this practice, having demonstrated low sero-prevalence in their antenatal population. In view of this, the aim of this study was to determine the seroprev...

OBJECTIVE Exposure to antenatal maternal anxiety and complex genetic variations may shape fetal brain development. In particular, the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene, located on chromosome 22q11.2, regulates catecholamine signaling in the prefrontal cortex and is implicated in anxiety, pain, and stress responsivity. This study examined whether individual single-nucleotide polymorphisms...

INTRODUCTION Studies have shown that depression or anxiety occur in 10-20% of pregnant women. These disorders are often undertreated and may affect mothers and children's health. This study investigates the relation between antenatal maternal depression, anxiety and children's early cognitive development among 1380 two-year-old children and 1227 three-year-old children. METHODS In the French ...

OBJECTIVE The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) is generally recognised as a valid, reliable, cost-effective and simple tool to implement within routine care, however there is controversy regarding the acceptability of screening for depression. This paper aims to examine how acceptable women find (1) completing a battery of questionnaires, including the EPDS and (2) receiving feedback...