https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)60074-4.pdf

Epidemiology and causes of preterm birth

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(07)61238-0.pdf

No health without mental health.

Perinatal depression: a systematic review of prevalence and incidence.

Sponsors asked the IOM's Food and Nutrition Board and the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education Board on Children, Youth, and Families to review and update the IOM (1990) recommendations for weight gain during pregnancy and recommend ways to encourage their adoption through consumer education, strategies to assist practitioners, and public health strategies.The committee was asked to address the following tasks: 1. Review evidence on the relationship between weight gain patterns before, during, and after pregnancy and maternal and child health outcomes, with particular attention to the prevalence of maternal obesity racial/ethnic and age differences, components of GWG, and implications of weight during pregnancy on postpartum weight retention, maternal and child obesity, and later child health. 2. Within a life-stage framework consider factors in relation to GWG that are associated with maternal health outcomes such as lactation performance, postpartum weight retention, cardiovascular disease, metabolic processes including glucose and insulin-related issues, and risk of other chronic diseases; for infants and children, in addition to low birth weight, consider early developmental impacts and obesity-related consequences (e.g., mental health, diabetes). 3. Recommend revisions to the existing guidelines, where necessary, including the need for specific pregnancy weight guidelines for underweight, normal weight, and overweight and obese women and adolescents and women carrying twins or higher-order multiples. 4. Consider a range of approaches to promote appropriate weight gain, including: individual (behavior), psychosocial, community, health care, and health systems; timing and components of interventions; and ways to enhance awareness and adoption of the guidelines, including interdisciplinary approaches, consumer education to men and women, strategies to assist practitioners to use the guidelines, and public health strategies. 5. Identify gaps in knowledge and recommend research priorities.

/pdf/weight-gain-during-pregnancy-reexamining-the-guidelines-54naat6auf.pdf

Weight Gain During Pregnancy: Reexamining the Guidelines

www.mobilehealthmap.org 617‐442‐3200 New research shows that mobile health clinics improve health outcomes for hard to reach populations in cost‐effective and culturally competent ways . A Harvard Medical School study determined that for every dollar invested in a mobile health clinic, the US healthcare system saves $30 on average. Mobile health clinics, which offer a range of services from preventive screenings to asthma treatment, leverage their mobility to treat people in the convenience of their own communities. For example, a mobile health clinic in Baltimore, MD, has documented savings of $3,500 per child seen due to reduced asthma‐related hospitalizations. The estimated 2,000 mobile health clinics across the country are providing similarly cost‐effective access to healthcare for a wide range of populations. Many successful mobile health clinics cite their ability to foster trusting relationships. Qualitative research in such mobile health clinics has found that patients value the informal, familiar environment in a convenient location, with staff who “are easy to talk to,” and that the staff’s “marriage of professional and personal discourses” provides patients the space to disclose information themselves. A communications academic argued that mobile health clinics’ unique use of space is important in facilitating these relationships. Mobile health clinics park in the heart of the community in familiar spaces, like shopping centers or bus stations, which lend themselves to the local community atmosphere.

Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

Depression is the leading cause of diseaserelated disability among women. In particular, women of childbearing age are at high risk for major depression. Pregnancy and new motherhood may increase the risk of depressive episodes. Depression during the perinatal period can have devastating consequences, not only for the women experiencing it but also for the women’s children and family. Perinatal depression encompasses major and minor depressive episodes that occur either during pregnancy or within the first 12 months following delivery. When referring to depression in this population, researchers and clinicians frequently have not been clear about whether they are referring to major depression alone or to both major and minor depression. Major depression is a distinct clinical syndrome for which treatment is clearly indicated, whereas the definition and management of minor depression are less clear. In this report, we refer to major depression alone by identifying it discretely as major depression. Minor depression is an impairing, yet less severe, constellation of depressive symptoms for which controlled trials have not consistently indicated whether or not particular interventions are more effective than placebo. In this report, we refer to this grouping as major or minor depression or by the more general terms “depression” or “depressive illness.” Perinatal depression, whether one is referring to major depression alone or to either major or minor depression, often goes unrecognized because many of the discomforts of pregnancy and the puerperium are similar to symptoms of depression. Another mental disorder that can occur in the perinatal period is postpartum psychosis. Unlike postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis is a relatively rare event with a range of estimated incidence of 1.1 to 4.0 cases per 1,000 deliveries. The onset of postpartum psychosis is usually acute, within the first 2 weeks of delivery, and appears to be more common in women with a strong family history of bipolar or schizoaffective disorder. Postpartum psychosis is an important disorder in its own right, but it is not addressed specifically in this report. The precise level of the prevalence and incidence of perinatal depression is uncertain. Published estimates of the rate of major and minor depression in the postpartum period range widely—from 5 percent to more than 25 percent of new mothers, depending on the assessment method, the timing of the assessment, and population characteristics. In addition, although many screening instruments have been developed or modified to detect major and minor depression in pregnant and newly delivered women, the evidence on their screening accuracy relative to a reference standard has yet to be systematically reviewed and assessed. Evidence on the effectiveness of screening all pregnant women and providing a preventive intervention to those scoring at high risk has not been systematically investigated and evaluated either. To address these gaps, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in collaboration with the Safe Motherhood Group (SMG), commissioned this evidence report from the RTI International-University of North Carolina’s (RTI-UNC’s) Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) for a systematic review of the evidence on three questions related to perinatal depression. These questions address the prevalence and incidence of perinatal depression, the accuracy of screening instruments for Evidence Report/Technology Assessment Number 119

Perinatal depression: prevalence, screening accuracy, and screening outcomes.

Tocolytic treatment for the management of preterm labor: A review of the evidence

On December 6, 1999, under Public Law 106-129, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) was reauthorized and renamed the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The law authorizes AHRQ to continue its research on the cost, quality, and outcomes of health care, and expands its role to improve patient safety and address medical errors. This report may be used, in whole or in part, as the basis for development of clinical practice guidelines and other quality enhancement tools, or a basis for reimbursement and coverage policies. AHRQ or U.S. Department of Health and Human Services endorsement of such derivative products may not be stated or implied.

Management of preterm labor.

Objective. This article reviews and synthesizes evidence in the published literature on the safety and efficacy of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) among young children with pediatric gastroenteritis in developed nations. Methodology. We searched the literature for randomized, controlled trials comparing the safety and efficacy of ORT with intravenous (IV) rehydration treatment and/or oral rehydration solutions (ORSs) of different sodium content. We combined the failure rates of each set of studies in statistical meta-analyses and conducted tests of homogeneity of treatment effect over all the studies and for subgroups of children defined by the trial type, the sodium content of the ORS, and the setting of care. We also conducted a multivariate logistic regression on the probability of failure to determine the relative importance of these factors, controlling for other characteristics of the trials. Other outcomes were also tabulated and discussed. These include the relative incidence of hypernatremia and hyponatremia induced by treatment; weight gain; the volume, frequency, and duration of diarrhea; for inpatient trials, the length of stay; and for outpatient trials, rates of hospitalization. Results. The evidence suggests that among pediatric patients with gastroenteritis in developed countries, failure of ORT, defined as the need to rehydrate children intravenously, is infrequent. We found a combined overall ORT failure rate of 3.6%. We found no statistically significant difference in failure rates by trial type or the sodium content of the ORS. However, we did find some supporting evidence for a lower failure rate among children treated in outpatient settings. In addition, compared with patients rehydrated intravenously, pediatric patients treated with ORT were not found to be at higher risk of iatrogenic hypernatremia or hyponatremia. The evidence from the literature fails to show a consistent trend in favor of either high-or low-sodium solutions for rehydration of pediatric patients. Conclusions. There seems to be a great potential for improving the medical treatment of children with acute gastroenteritis by the greater use of ORT.

Norma I. Gavin

Papers

Perinatal depression: a systematic review of prevalence and incidence.

Perinatal depression: prevalence, screening accuracy, and screening outcomes.

Tocolytic treatment for the management of preterm labor: A review of the evidence

Management of preterm labor.

Efficacy of Glucose-based Oral Rehydration Therapy