INTRODUCTION Several retrospective or single-centre studies demonstrated the efficacy of transplacental treatment of fetal tachyarrhythmias. Our retrospective nationwide survey showed that the fetal therapy will be successful at an overall rate of 90%. For fetuses with hydrops, the treatment success rate will be 80%. However, standard protocol has not been established. The objective of this stu...

Fetal tachyarrhythmia is a rare but serious disease. Without treatment, it may progress to fetal cardiac failure, hydrops fetalis and in utero fetal death. With the rapid advancement in fetal echocardiographic equipment and techniques, such arrhythmia can be diagnosed accurately during prenatal life by using M-mode echocardiogram and doppler. Prenatal control of the tachyarrhythmia can be achie...

The Bluetongue virus serotype 8 (BTV-8) strain, which emerged in Europe in 2006, had an unusually high ability to cause foetal infection in pregnant ruminants. Other serotypes of BTV had already been present in Europe for more than a decade, but transplacental transmission of these strains had never been demonstrated. To determine whether transplacental transmission is a unique feature of BTV-8...

The carcinogenicity of vinyl chloride for experimental animals when administered transplacentally is reviewed in comparison with known transplacental carcinogens, including those that, like vinyl chloride, are dependent on enzyme-mediated metabolic conversion to a reactive intermediate in maternal or fetal tissues. Vinyl chloride is converted by mixed-function oxidases to the reactive metabolit...

Background: Maternal antibodies, transported over the placenta during pregnancy, contribute to the protection of infants from infectious diseases during the first months of life. In term infants, this protection does not last until the first recommended measles-mumpsrubella vaccination at 14 months in the Netherlands, while these viruses still circulate. The aim of the study was to investigate ...

Neurotoxicity is the major health effect from exposure to lead for infants and young children, and there is current concern regarding possible toxic effects of lead on the child while in utero. There is no placental-fetal barrier to lead transport. Maternal and fetal blood lead levels are nearly identical, so lead passes through the placenta unencumbered. Lead has been measured in the fetal bra...

Placentae were examined from 120 women whose pregnancy and delivery was normal, from 264 women whose pregnancy or delivery was complicated, and from 98 women who were Rh-negative without antibodies and 35 women Rh-negative with antibodies. The presence of Kline's haemorrhages, intervillous thrombi, infarcts, and retroplacental haemorrhages was positively correlated with the presence of foetal c...

ment was not successful, and possibly a longer duration of transplacental treatment would have been more appropriate. In our series the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome as the underlying cause of the tachycardia was found in three of the 22 infants who had a postnatal electrocardiogram. In summary p, ,hological atrial tachycardias are a potential cause of non-immune hydrops. As these rhythm distu...