The cost of health care has been a major topic in the news of late. The growth in public debt is due in no small part to inflation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. As physicians, we always wish to do what we can to maximize our patient’s health. But is there any way to do this without increasing the price-tag of medicine?
Along with the excitement and joy of a new baby come stresses, increased health concerns for mom and the newborn, and other health service issues. Women with infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) often experience more distress than their counterparts with healthy infants, yet they may lack the resources to address these needs. Dr Kathryn Menard, director of the Center for Maternal and Infant Health and division director and distinguished professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical School, and colleagues sought to ascertain the specific needs of this patient population to help determine if these needs can be met in the NICU setting.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that women begin Pap test screening at 21 years, but are there certain circumstances in which Pap tests are warranted at younger ages? Dr Amy M. Johnson of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and colleagues hypothesized that teenage girls who engage in risky behaviors would benefit from early initiation of cervical screening.
Dr Rebecca B. Perkins and colleagues recently found that the HPV vaccine was not being appropriately offered in a cohort of 136 young, low-income, minority women. The results of their study were presented at the Annual ACOG Meeting in Washington, DC.
Considered to be one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, human papillomavirus (HPV) infection affects an estimated 26.8% of females aged 14 years to 59 years. This statistic includes low-risk HPV, which can cause genital warts and other nonmalignant conditions, as well as high-risk HPV, which can cause cervical cancer.
Advances in successful assisted reproductive technologies have enabled clinicians to further aid their patients who would otherwise be unable to conceive. However, little is known about this trend and its continued future growth.
Despite great advances in maternity care, the number of women who give birth to infants requiring special care is still high. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Preconception Health Plan has called for care to ameliorate health problems, support pregnancy spacing, and improve future birth outcomes in those women with a previous adverse pregnancy outcome
Would you turn an obese woman away from your practice? While it may seem unethical to most, Florida's Sun Sentinel has polled 105 ob/gyn practices to ask if they have set an established "weight cut-off" for new patients - 15 said they have.
Should I have my fibroids removed before I try to get pregnant? That is one of the most difficult questions I have to answer! Here is what we know.
A 57-year-old patient presents for evaluation of right nipple discomfort. The patient has family history of a mother and sister with premenopausal breast cancer.
Emergency care in obstetric practice is fraught with medico-legal risk. This is especially true when the practitioner has no established relationship with the parturient and either mother or child sustains serious or permanent injury during the birth process. Although reform efforts have been proposed expanding limits to liability in certain settings where emergency care is provided, currently, obstetricians often must rely on the protection afforded by their respective state’s Good Samaritan statute.
Hypertension affects as many as 8% of all pregnancies. Not only does it pose complications during pregnancy, but even if it resolves after delivery, it places women at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. As such, these women should receive cardiovascular disease counseling and screening, including the monitoring of their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, implementation of lifestyle modifications, and awareness of heart attack symptoms.
This young adult female (22 years age) had no significant complaints and was referred for a routine ultrasound scan of the abdomen to rule out any pathology. She complained of minor thyroid complaints, and ultrasonography suggested presence of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis in this lady.
Increases in the prevalence of asthma, especially in children, have raised concern in the medical community, resulting in research to find possible causes and to explore potential means of prevention. Recently there has been some evidence linking acetaminophen (known as paracetamol in New Zealand) use in pregnant women and subsequent increased risk for asthma in their offspring.
A 37 year old woman came to me in July, 2009 with a prolapsing 8 cm. fibroid. She had been seen by her HMO doctors multiple times for heavy bleeding, had 15 ultrasounds, but nothing was done.
Experts are focused on how errors happen and how they can be reduced.
In a survey of more than 100 nurses, physicians, and administrators, participants were asked how often they witnessed or experienced disruptive behaviors.
A new study compared female ever-smokers with never-smokers and found that ever smoking cigarettes increases the risk for invasive breast cancer by 9% and current smoking increases the risk 16%.
In an effort to develop an improved blood test for early detection of ovarian cancer, a rigorous landmark validation study of 49 potential markers shows that blood levels of CA-125 protein remain the best bet.
A new analysis finds that measurements of body mass index, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio might not be as valuable in predicting cardiovascular disease as previously thought.
Fish consumption during pregnancy has created a significant amount of discussion among scientists, policy makers and healthcare professionals.
Whether they use bisphosphonates or not, postmenopausal women need to pay more attention to their dental health.
A so-called "diabetes belt" reflecting a far higher prevalence of diabetes than in the rest of the US exists.
In an effort to quell the intractable problem of premature birth in the United States, the March of Dimes has joined with Stanford University School of Medicine in California to apply a transdisciplinary approach to the problem of prematurity.
A pediatrician recommends that a teenage girl begin using oral contraceptives, but her parents disagree with use of them. They are seeking a second opinion.
In the latest step toward making noninvasive detection of fetal trisomy 21 a reality, researchers in California evaluated a multiplexed, massively parallel shotgun sequencing assay to identify women carrying a fetal trisomy 21 fetus.
Because research shows that women are more likely than men to forgo, delay and ration medical care because of personal debt incurred from healthcare costs and expenses, investigators set out to determine whether financial hardships associated with medical debt also differ by gender.
Over the past 25 years, advances in cancer treatment have led to improved long-term survival rates among adult and pediatric cancer patients.
Among premenopausal women who have undergone mammography in the previous 2 years, mammography is more sensitive at detecting breast cancer when performed during the first week of the menstrual cycle than during the second, third or fourth.
Studies confirm that passive secondhand cigarette smoke inhaled by pregnant women increases risks for stillbirths, certain birth defects, and other adverse perinatal outcomes.
