INTRODUCTION Women older than 40 years have been termed "advanced maternal age" and considered to be at risk of adverse pregnancy outcome. This study aimed to examine the obstetrical outcomes among primiparous and multiparous African advanced maternal age women. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort study study at two teaching hospitals at Yaounde, Cameroon. From the hospital records, o...

OBJECTIVES To compare the value of transvaginal ultrasonographic measurement of the cervical length versus the Bishop score, prior to induction of labour, in predicting the mode of delivery within four days. MATERIALS AND METHODS This longitudinal study included 110 women (at term, singleton, vertex presentation) in whom induction of labour was performed at 37-42 weeks of gestation. Cervical ...

BACKGROUND Childbirth confidence is an important marker of women's coping abilities during labour and birth. This study investigated socio-demographic, obstetric and psychological factors affecting self-efficacy in childbearing women. METHOD This paper presents a secondary analysis of data collected as part of the BELIEF study (Birth Emotions - Looking to Improve Expectant Fear). Women (n = 1...

OBJECTIVES To assess the urethral vascularity in continent women using colour doppler high frequency endovaginal ultrasonography (EVUS). METHODS We recruited 61 continent women attending gynaecology clinics between July and October 2009. Exclusion criteria included symptoms of urinary incontinence, voiding dysfunction, pelvic organ prolapse or urinary tract infection. The participants underwe...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Low urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) are a common problem during pregnancy. This study aimed to compare changes in the prevalence of LUTS during pregnancy between primiparous and multiparous women. METHODS A chart review of consecutive pregnant women who attended our antenatal clinic from March 2002 to January 2006 was performed. All of the women were asked to respond to a...

BACKGROUND Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) failure with unknown causes are the controversial issues that are probably related to the immune system. OBJECTIVE To compare circulating NK cells expressing activation and inhibition surface markers between patients with RSA and IVF failure with those of healthy multiparous and successful IVF control women, resp...

OBJECTIVE To compare maternal and neonatal outcomes based on length of the latent phase during induction with rupture of membranes before 6 cm dilation. METHODS This is a retrospective cohort study using data from the Consortium of Safe Labor study, including 9,763 nulliparous and 8,379 multiparous women with singleton, term pregnancies undergoing induction at 2 cm dilation or less with ruptu...

BACKGROUND Intrapartum complications and the use of obstetric interventions are more common in primiparous childbirth than in multiparous childbirth, leading to concern about out of hospital birth for primiparous women. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effect of birthplace on perinatal and maternal morbidity and the use of obstetric interventions differed by parity among l...