Much of the decline in childhood mortality over the past two decades is attributable to improvements in neonatal intensive care for very-low-birthweight infants. Yet large and persistent disparities persist in the quality of neonatal intensive care across hospitals. Improving care for infants now served by hospitals with poor outcomes can greatly reduce infant mortality, particularly among mino...

BACKGROUND Continuous electronic fetal heart rate monitoring in labour is widely used but its potential for improving fetal and neonatal outcomes has not been realised. The most likely reason is the difficulty of interpreting the fetal heart rate trace correctly during labour. Computerised interpretation of the fetal heart rate and intelligent decision-support has the potential to deliver this ...

BACKGROUND Publicly insured women usually have a different demographic background to privately insured women, which is related to poor neonatal outcomes after birth. Given the difference in nature and risk of preterm versus term births, it would be important to compare adverse neonatal outcomes after preterm birth between these groups of women after eliminating the demographic differences betwe...

OBJECTIVE We performed a retrospective study to evaluate adolescent pregnancies as for gestational complications, and prinatal outcomes. METHODS We evaluated 341 pregnants whose data we could reach regarding gestational, and perinatal complications. RESULTS In our study group anemia (35.4%), preeclampsia/eclampsia (1.45%), premature membrane rupture (1.4%), intrauterine growth retardation (...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the impact of caesarean delivery on the incidence of selected neonatal outcomes. PATIENTS AND METHODS A 15-year, population-based, cohort study (1988-2002) using the Nova Scotia Atlee Perinatal Database compared neonatal outcomes in term newborns born by spontaneous and assisted vaginal delivery, with newborns born by caesarean delivery, with and without labour, using mu...

BACKGROUND Globally postnatal care (PNC) of the newborn is being promoted as a strategy to reduce neonatal deaths, yet few studies have looked at associations between early PNC and neonatal outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study we look at the associations of PNC provided on day 1 and by day 7 of life by type of provider - skilled (doctor, midwife or nurse or unskilled (traditional birth...

BACKGROUND Guideline utilization aims at improvement in quality of care and better health outcomes. The objective of the current study was to determine the effect of provider complete adherence to the first antenatal care guidelines on the risk of maternal and neonatal complications in a low resource setting. METHODS Women delivering in 11 health facilities in the Greater Accra region of Ghan...

BACKGROUND To compare maternal and neonatal outcomes of term macrosomic and adequate for gestational age (AGA) pregnancies. MATERIAL/METHODS A retrospective analysis was performed on all term singleton macrosomic (birth weight ≥4000 g) and AGA (birth weight >10th percentile and <4000 g) pregnancies delivered at our hospital between 2004 and 2008. Data collected included maternal age, gestatio...

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of moderate-to-severe transient neonatal hypocalcemia in term neonates and to describe the characteristics of affected infants and the outcomes of their management. METHODS We reviewed medical records of all term infants <31 days of age who presented to Children's Medical Center Dallas from 2001 to 2009 with hypocalcemia (ionized calcium <1.00 mmol/L [4.00...

OBJECTIVE To describe the incidence and characteristics of terminal fetal heart rate decelerations and to estimate their association with acidemia. METHODS A 5-year retrospective cohort study of all women with singleton, nonanomalous gestations who labored and reached complete dilation at or after 37 weeks of gestation. The 30 minutes of electronic fetal monitoring before delivery were interp...