BACKGROUND Continuous support by a midwife during childbirth has shown positive effects on the duration of active labour, use of pain relief and frequency of caesarean section (CS) in women without fear of childbirth (FOC). We have evaluated how continuous support by a specially assigned midwife during childbirth affects birth outcome and the subjective experience of women with severe FOC. ME...

Accurate prenatal estimation of birth weight is useful in the management of labour and delivery. This study compared the accuracy of ultrasound, clinical and maternal estimates of fetal weight in 246 parous women with singleton, term pregnancies admitted for scheduled caesarean section. The sensitivity and specificity of predicting birth weight by ultrasound measures were 12.6% and 92.1%, by cl...

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding contraception of parous women. STUDY DESIGN A cross- sectional survey. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Out-patient Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Sir Syed Hospital, Karachi, from October 2008 to March 2009. METHODOLOGY A self-maintained structured questionnaire was used to interview 100 parous wo...

OBJECTIVES This paper examines the effect of household crowding on inter-pregnancy spacing and its association with socioeconomic indicators, among parous mothers delivered in an urban environment. DESIGN Cross sectional survey. METHODS Sociodemographic data were obtained on 2466 parous women delivering at eight hospitals in Greater Beirut over a one year period. Statistical methodology com...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between pre-symptom onset live births and functional outcome in women with inflammatory polyarthritis (IP). METHODS 1872 women with no subsequent pregnancies were registered with the Norfolk Arthritis Register between 1990 and 2004 and followed-up for a median of 5 years. Functional disability over time was assessed by Health Assessment Questionnaire ...

BACKGROUND We previously demonstrated an association between plasma perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) and longer time to pregnancy (TTP) in a sample from the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC, 1996-2002). In this study we investigated this association in a new sample from the same cohort. METHODS Sample 1 consisted of 440 women, and Sample 2 consisted of 1161 wom...

Reproductive and menstrual characteristics, as well as high circulating estrogen concentrations, are associated with risk of hormone-related cancers in postmenopausal women. To explore possible etiologic relationships between menstrual/reproductive characteristics and risk of hormone-related cancers, we examined associations between menstrual/reproductive factors and serum concentrations of fre...