This paper discusses the main advances in fetal surgical therapy aiming to inform health care professionals about the state-of-the-art techniques and future challenges in this field. We discuss the necessary steps of technical evolution from the initial open fetal surgery approach until the development of minimally invasive techniques of fetal endoscopic surgery (fetoscopy).

Since its inception in 2004 the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) has become embedded in the fabric of day-to-day general practice. Yet despite some of its tangible successes, the QOF's vulnerability to gaming poses challenges to its applicability as the dominant quality improvement framework in primary care. This paper questions whether high QOF scores amount to better care or simply the il...

Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia studied fetal health in Uruguay during the second half of the twentieth century. Caldeyro-Barcia developed Montevideo units, which are used to quantify intrauterine pressure, or the force of contractions during labor. Intrauterine pressure is a useful measure of the progression of labor and the health of a fetus [3]. Caldeyro-Barcia?s research on fetal health often contr...

Background. Fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality are significant problems in developing countries; remote maternal-fetal monitoring offers promise in addressing this challenge. The Gary and Mary West Health Institute and the Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud conducted a demonstration project of wirelessly enabled antepartum maternal-fetal monitoring in the state of Yucatán, Mexico, to ass...

icrochimerism is considered as the occurrence of small populations of cells with a diverse genetic setting within a person (1). Tissue microchimerism is enhanced during pregnancy and is frequently associated with femaledominant autoimmune disorders, response to injury from malignancy, and transplantation effect (2). Recently, a group of pathologists at Leiden University Medical Center in the Ne...

OBJECTIVE To develop national guidelines on the use of fetal Doppler in obstetrics. OPTIONS Whether umbilical cord artery, umbilical cord venous, ductus venosus, and middle cerebral artery Doppler are useful in assessing fetal health. OUTCOME Prediction of adverse perinatal outcome or prediction of fetal anemia. EVIDENCE MEDLINE search and review of bibliographies in identified articles. ...

Background: Anxiety with different shapes induces some complications in women in their first pregnancy. Reducing anxiety level can promote maternal-fetal health. Aim: to examine the effect of learning the “attachment behaviors” on the anxiety level and “maternal fetal attachment” in first pregnant women referring to Shiraz obstetric clinics in 2010 Methods: In this randomized control trial 84 p...

Modifications in maternal nutrition during pregnancy can significantly disrupt fetal growth and subsequent post-natal health and survival. This study investigated the effects of undernutrition on fetal growth and the potential mechanisms involved. Tissue from pregnant ewes (n=27) was investigated on days 45, 90 and 135 of gestation (term = approximately 150 days). The thoracic girth (P<0.05) wa...