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Women with gestational diabetes who receive dietary advice, blood glucose monitoring, and insulin therapy as needed experience significantly fewer serious perinatal complications and seem to have a higher health-related quality of life than women who receive routine care; however, more of them have their labor induced and more of their infants are admitted to the neonatal nursery.

Ob/gyns have welcomed the expanded role of pharmacists in providing quality care to women. The detailed instructions that pharmacists give when dispensing medication reinforce the information we give in the office.

Doing so can lead to serious—even fatal—complications. To protect mother and fetus alike, manage these patients just as aggressively as your nonpregnant asthmatics.

Low-dose aspirin combined with low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) during pregnancy is just as safe and effective as aspirin with unfractionated heparin (UFH) for preventing recurrent pregnancy loss due to antiphospholipid syndrome, according to a prospective, controlled, multicenter pilot study.

The caduceus is the modern American symbol of the medical profession. But the Asklepian, which I encountered on a recent trip to the Greek island of Kos, may be a far better emblem for the values we as ob/gyns hold dear. Allow me to explain the import of two snakes versus one.

Postterm birth seems to get a lot less attention than preterm birth when clinicians are discussing the risks of complications and death. But, unlike babies born too soon, timely delivery can almost entirely prevent the risks—including stillbirth—linked with prolonged pregnancy.

Contrary to the "fetal origins" hypothesis and suggestions of a strong inverse relationship between birthweight and subsequent blood cholesterol levels, a recent study finds that 1-kg lower birthweight may be associated with at most about 2.0 mg/dL (0.05 mmol/L) higher total cholesterol later in life—an amount unlikely to have much impact on public health.

Women with twin pregnancies should not be given prophylactic cerclage simply because they are carrying two fetuses. A 14-year retrospective study of twins using data from Matria Healthcare indicates that prophylactic cerclage is associated with a higher frequency of very premature delivery, low birth weight and very low birth weight infants, and more nursery days

Healthy women who have had a prior cesarean delivery can safely delivery vaginally. That is the conclusion of a 14-year retrospective study at the John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, IL.

We can do a better job of screening and testing sexually active teens and young adults for STIs. Keeping up with the latest evidence can help you decide when to test, whom to test, and which of a wide array of office- and lab-based tests to choose.

The risks of neonatal convulsions and neonatal withdrawal syndrome seem to increase when a pregnant women uses selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), with paroxetine being the worst offender, according to cases reported by 72 countries to the World Health Organization's Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring in Uppsala, Sweden.