Pregnancy briefs

PREGNANCY is the first step on the road to motherhood shared by millions globally.

Debra Ginsberg puts it poignantly:  "Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did – that everything involving our children was painful in some way. 

The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. 

The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”

CAESAREAN delivery performed in a first pregnancy appears to increase the risk of complications in later pregnancies, researchers have shown.

Compared to a vaginal first birth, a caesarean delivery at first birth doubled the risk in a second pregnancy of a woman developing pre-eclampsia, placenta abnormalities, and having a small baby, according to a report in Obstetrics & Gynaecology.

However, Dr Anne Kjertsti Daltveit, from the University of Bergen in Norway, and colleagues emphasise a woman’s obstetric history must be taken into account. If the same complications were excluded from the first birth, risks in the second pregnancy fell. – Reuters

IT IS not just moms who can get postpartum depression with a US study finding one in about every 10 new dads, or 10%, suffers the "baby blues”.

Researchers James Paulson and Sharnail Bazemore found three to six months after birth seemed to be the most vulnerable time for dads. This is also the highest risk time period for new moms. – Reuters

WOMEN who smoke during pregnancy may increase their children’s risk of high-functioning autism, according to a new study in the American journal, Environmental Health Perspectives.

The findings suggest although autism spectrum disorders share many of the same symptoms, subtypes have many different causes. – Health-E News