The non-pneumatic anti-shock garment (NASG) is a first-aid device that reverses hypovolaemic shock and decreases obstetric haemorrhage. It consists of articulated neoprene segments that close tightly with Velcro, shunting blood from the lower body to the core organs, elevating blood pressure and increasing preload and cardiac output. This chapter describes the controversial history of the prede...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of different factors with postpartum depression. METHODS A prospective study conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical College, Kolkata. Six thousand patients, 4-7 days postpartum, were interrogated using Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Sociodemographic factors (age, parity, literacy, socioeconomic status, marital stat...

BACKGROUND Between 0.1 and 0.9% of women develop complications of pregnancy that require admission to an intensive care unit (ICU). The purpose of this study was to review all obstetric patients admitted to the ICU over an 8-year period to determine the causes and outcomes of these admissions and the frequency and causes of maternal mortality. METHODS This retrospective study was based on all...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether self-reports of reproductive history and obstetric morbidity provide an accurate basis for clinical decision-making. SETTING, PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Self-reports of maternal age and reproductive history, together with clinical measurements of five medical disorders, were abstracted from the obstetric notes of 517 mothers whose children were enrolled in the Birth t...

OBJECTIVE To examine the potential value of maternal serum level of α-fetoprotein (AFP) in the first trimester of pregnancy in the prediction of spontaneous early preterm delivery. METHODS Maternal serum concentration of AFP at 11-13 weeks' gestation was measured in a case-control study of singleton pregnancies delivering phenotypically normal neonates, including 33 cases with spontaneous del...

Preterm delivery is the main cause of neonatal death and ultrasonographic cervical assessment has been shown to be more accurate than digital examination in recognizing a short cervix. This is a cross-sectional study, involving 1131 women at 22-24 weeks of pregnancy, designed to determine the distribution of cervical length and to examine which variables of demographic characteristics and obste...

CONTEXT Anti-DFS70 antibodies are the most frequent antinuclear antibodies (ANA) found in healthy individuals. We assessed the clinical significance of the presence of anti-DFS70 antibodies. METHODS We defined a group of patients (n = 421) with anti-DFS70 antibodies and a group of patients (n = 63) with a history of idiopathic arterial and/or venous thrombotic disease and/or obstetric complic...