For how we live.
A 141,943-pregnancy study in China found a U-shaped link: low haemoglobin early and late, and high haemoglobin from mid-pregnancy, each tracked with modestly higher odds of preterm birth. Altitude shifted the thresholds.
An interrupted time-series study of 32.9 million births estimated roughly 2,300 more preterm births to Latina women than expected in the nine months after November 2016. It is an association, not proof of cause.
A US Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network cohort of 217 matched pairs found developmental scores equivalent at 18 to 30 months whether or not mothers had an mRNA COVID vaccine in pregnancy.
A secondary analysis of the APRIL trial found low-dose aspirin slashed recurrent preterm birth in women whose previous placenta had vascular malperfusion, and did nothing for the rest. Numbers are tiny.
A Swedish cohort of 1,455,645 children found maternal autoimmune disease in pregnancy raised offspring type 1 diabetes risk by 57 percent — but fathers carried nearly the same risk, pointing to shared family genes.
An Ontario cohort of 1,035,927 pregnancies found excessive gestational weight gain was linked to more severe maternal morbidity in every BMI category, adjusted rate ratios 1.16 to 1.33 (observational).
In 544 pregnant women followed across Rio de Janeiro state, adverse maternal outcomes hit 18% of confirmed Oropouche infections versus 7% without, with fetal loss and haemorrhage risks roughly tripled.
In nearly 40,000 UK women, abnormal blood pressure six weeks after a hypertensive pregnancy roughly doubled later cardiovascular disease. A Dutch cohort shows pregnancy history sharpens risk prediction.
A prospective UK surveillance study followed 210 pregnancies in 209 women with a pre-pregnancy cardiomyopathy diagnosis over three years. There were no maternal deaths; 10% had heart failure and 8% an arrhythmia.
In the MONEAD cohort, six-year-olds whose mothers breastfed while taking antiseizure medicines scored no worse on language or adaptive behaviour — and longer breastfeeding tracked with slightly better scores.
A nationwide Brazilian cohort of 4.1 million children found that babies exposed to Zika in the womb but without congenital Zika syndrome had the same pneumonia-hospitalisation risk as unexposed children.
There has been no reliable way to prevent pre-eclampsia at term. PREVENT-PE screened over 8,000 women late in pregnancy and offered earlier birth to those at highest risk — and pre-eclampsia fell by nearly a third.
The FDA logged the recall of 1,640 AVID single-shot epidural trays on 23 September, because they hold sodium-chloride ampules caught in a separate Class I sterility recall that warns of possible infection.
Heartburn is one of the most common complaints in pregnancy. Diet and posture changes come first; a Cochrane review found antacid-type medicines relieve it, but the trial evidence is thin and drug choice needs care.
Guidelines set weight-gain ranges by starting BMI, not a doubled appetite. A large meta-analysis links gaining outside those ranges to worse outcomes at both ends — smaller and larger babies alike.
Drawing on households across every province and region, researchers estimate a stillbirth rate of 30.5 per 1,000 births and a maternal mortality ratio of 176 per 100,000 — both above national and 2030 targets.
A Lancet Global Health model projects that barring women from nursing and midwifery training could cut maternal care-seeking to a third of current levels and raise the maternal mortality ratio 29% to 41% by 2035.
For most women without complications, activity in pregnancy is safe and beneficial. Trials link exercise to lower odds of gestational diabetes and high blood pressure, with a rough dose to aim for.
Nausea in early pregnancy is common and usually mild. Ginger has the best trial support for nausea, vitamin B6 and doxylamine are options, and acupuncture shows no clear benefit.
Guidelines settle on a limit near 200 mg a day — roughly two mugs of coffee. But the underlying studies are observational, and a vocal minority argues there is no clearly safe level.
A modelling study of 93 household surveys corrects for the chronic underreporting that hides stillbirths, and finds steady but socially unequal declines in perinatal mortality since 1990.
Two large African trials gave anaemic pregnant women intravenous ferric carboxymaltose or oral iron. Neither found less anaemia near term, or heavier babies, with the infusion.
The E-MOTIVE trial, across 80 hospitals and 210,132 births in four African countries, paired objective blood measurement with a first-response bundle — and severe outcomes fell sharply.
A meta-analysis of 28 studies and 684,065 people links intimate partner violence to raised odds of neonatal, infant and under-5 death — the association strongest for sexual violence.
Across 26 states, expansion raised the Medicaid-paid share of deliveries by 5.2% and changed the severe maternal morbidity rate by 0.02% — an interval that includes zero in both directions.
A Bulletin of the WHO study recorded 168 maternal deaths between October 2023 and June 2024, alongside higher stillbirth, neonatal-death and preterm-birth rates than before the war.
About 260,000 women died in pregnancy or childbirth in 2023; 37 conflict-affected or fragile countries accounted for 61% of those deaths while holding only a quarter of the world's births.
In 59 facilities across Malawi and Uganda where 431,394 women gave birth, the APT-Sepsis programme reduced infection-related death, near-miss events and severe illness from 1.9% to 1.4%.