A key policy question is whether the benefits of additional medical expenditures exceed their costs. We propose a new approach for estimating marginal returns to medical spending based on variation in medical inputs generated by diagnostic thresholds. Specifically, we combine regression discontinuity estimates that compare health outcomes and medical treatment provision for newborns on either s...

BACKGROUND Numerous studies have examined associations between air pollution and pregnancy outcomes, but most have been restricted to urban populations living near monitors. OBJECTIVES We examined the association between pregnancy outcomes and fine particulate matter in a large national study including urban and rural areas. METHODS Analyses were based on approximately 3 million singleton l...

Objectives: Aim of this study is to find out the clinical relevance estimating paraoxonase activity PON1 enzyme, triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol, HDL, and LDL levels in maternal serum umbilical cord blood according birth weight. Methods: Venous samples were taken from mothers just before birth. Babies divided into four groups: normal-weight babies, premature low weight postmature babies. T...

Anthropometric parameters are an important indicator of health and nutritional status comprising the whole span of mans life. However, they are not of the same degree of simplicity and sensitivity in assessing the public health status. During recent decades many studies have attempted to examine the relationships of these measurements in order to present simple alternatives for similar purposes...

introduction: the aim of this study was to investigate weight gain during pregnancy and birth weight in rural regions of tabriz, a province in the northwest of iran. materials & methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted using routinely collected data of pregnant mothers from rural health centers. eight health centers were randomly selected in rural areas of tabriz. totally, 874 women aged ...

introduction: there is a great deal of controversy regarding the effect of gestational magnesium (mg) deficiency on fetal growth and the incidence of low birth weight (lbw) in infants. therefore, this study aimed to delineate the possible relationship between maternal mg level and infant lbw. methods: this case-control study was conducted on 180 mothers in shiraz, iran. fasting blood samples we...

introduction minerals and trace elements such as zinc and copper have significant influence on development and growth of the fetus and newborn. the purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between low birth weight and maternal and neonatal zinc, copper levels. materials and methods this case – control study   was done from september 2006 to sep 2007 consisted of 65 infants with b...

abstractbackground: previous studies revealed that maternal serum level of vitamin d can influence neonatal outcomes. in this controlled trial, we evaluated the effect of vitamin d supplementation during pregnancy on birth weight.methods: in this interventional study, we enrolled 67 pregnant women (gestation: 10 weeks), who referred to seyyedal shohada hospital during two years (from january 20...

in this research a comparative study has been made between case and control groups. the cases were low birth weight newborns (under 2500 gr) and the controls were normal berth weighing 2500 gr or more at birth. four groups of birth weight were considered as follows: very low birth weight, low birth weight, moderately low birth weight and normal. the data were collected over a period of 8 months...

the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of birth weight (bw) on future milk production and reproductive performance in iranian holstein cattle. records of holstein cows between 1967 and 2010 were obtained from the animal breeding center of iran. birth weights within each herd were grouped into five categories based on the standard normal distribution curves (z ≤-0.8416, -0.841...