Would-be fathers may increase their partner’s risk of miscarriage by smoking during the pregnancy, or even during the time leading up to conception, a large study from China suggests. Based on data for nearly 6 million pregnancies, researchers found that women whose partner smoked during the first few months of the pregnancy were 17 percent more likely to miscarry than women with nonsmoking partners. Women whose partner quit smoking around the time of conception had an 18 percent lower risk of miscarriage than those whose smoking partner didn’t quit, the study team reports in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. “Although we have known for a long time that if the mother smokes the
Using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) around the time of conception significantly increases the risk of miscarriage in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, a study suggests. Researchers compared newly pregnant women who used NSAIDs around the time of conception or early in their pregnancy to those who used acetaminophen or no painkillers, and found using NSAIDs around conception carried a more than four-fold higher risk of early miscarriage. The results support earlier evidence that NSAIDs interfere with prostaglandins, hormone-like molecules that are critical for implantation of an early embryo in the uterus, the study team writes in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gyneco
Physicians may want to dig a little deeper into their closets, or grab their white coats on the way out of the operating room, if they want patients to view them favorably, according to the largest-ever study of patient preferences for doctors' attire. In fact, what medical doctors wear may matter more than most doctors -- or even patients -- might think, say the researchers behind the new paper in BMJ Open. Based on their findings, they call for more hospitals, health systems and practice groups to look at their dress standards for physicians, or create them if they don't already have one. Just over half of the 4,062 patients surveyed in the clinics and hospitals of ten major medical center
A combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol can help bring closure to some women and their families suffering from miscarriage, and reduces the need for surgical intervention to complete the painful miscarriage process. Results of a new clinical trial led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, show that while the standard drug regimen using misoprostol on its own frequently fails to complete the miscarriage, a combination of misoprostol and the drug mifepristone works much more reliably. The report is published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Each year in the United States alone approximately 1 million women have miscarr
