Longer Breastfeeding Duration Shown to Reduce Waist Size Over the Long Term
December 20th 2018Women who breastfed for longer than 6 months had a smaller waist circumference and body mass index (BMI) compared with women who have not breastfed or have breastfed for a shorter duration, according to the results of a recent study.
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Canadian Health Agencies Release Physical Activity Guidance During Pregnancy
December 1st 2018The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology have released consensus guidelines that will provide guidance for pregnant women as well as their clinical care providers on prenatal physical activity.
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Quality Antenatal Care Lacking in Low-Income Countries
November 27th 2018Patients in low-income countries receive similar antenatal care coverage as patients in high-income countries. However, they receive inequitable quality of antenatal care for 3 essential services: blood pressure monitoring, urine and blood tests, according to a study published in Lancet Global Health.
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Inflammatory Disease Activity, Corticosteroid Use Increase Risk of Preterm Delivery
November 24th 2018Rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis increase the risk of preterm delivery (PTD) in pregnant women. Additionally, treatment with corticosteroid can lead to a 2- to 5-fold increased risk of PTD in both groups, independent of disease activity.
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Ultrasound Safer Than MRI to Monitor Rheumatoid Arthritis in Pregnancy
November 20th 2018Ultrasounds are a safer and equally effective diagnostic tool compared with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose and monitor pregnant women with suspected active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), according to a new report published in Radiology Case Reports.
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Higher BMI Decreases Risk of Breast Cancer in Premenopausal Women
November 15th 2018A large pooled analysis of 758,592 premenopausal women, conducted by the Premenopausal Breast Cancer Collaborative Group, identified an inverse association between body mass index (BMI) and the risk of breast cancer.
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ACR Study: Childhood Abuse Increases the Risk of Lupus in Women
November 12th 2018Systemic lupus erythematosus, characterized by systemic inflammation in multiple organs, has a higher probability of being diagnosed in women who experienced emotional or physical abuse when growing up, according to a study presented at the 2018 American College of Rheumatology (ACR)/The Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Meeting.
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Multiethnic Study Identifies Factors That Predispose Midlife Women to Cardiometabolic Risk
November 9th 2018Modifiable factors, including lower caloric intake, greater physical activity, and smoking cessation, have been associated with recovery from metabolic syndrome, according to the results recently published following a multiethnic study.
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DASH Diet Leads to Decreased Gestational Weight Gain
November 8th 2018A randomized clinical trial in obese or overweight pregnant women evaluating the use of a modified diet regimen shows a beneficial effect of a modified Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet on gestation weight gain compared with usual care.
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Are TNF Inhibitors Safe in Pregnancy?
November 2nd 2018A review published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences highlights existing knowledge gaps in understanding the safety and impact of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α inhibitors in pregnant women suffering from inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis and rhaumatoid arthritis.
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Long-Term Research Shows Positive Pregnancy Outcomes in Patients With Lupus
November 1st 2018New research presented at the 2018 American College of Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Meeting, in Chicago, Illinois, reported on progress over the past 20 years in the care of pregnant women with systemic lupus erythepatosus (SLE) that has led to a decline in maternal mortality and intrauterine fetal death among patients with SLE.
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US Women Have Higher Risk of Dying Prematurely, Report Says
September 21st 2018In the United States, a woman age 30 to 70 years of age has a 1 in 8 chance of dying from a noncommunicable disease (NCDs), putting the nation on par with low and middle-income countries, and setting it apart with Iceland among high-income countries, according to a report published Thursday in The Lancet.
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Women More Likely to Survive Heart Attacks When Treated by Female Physicians
August 31st 2018A recent review of nearly 582,000 heart attack cases over the span of 19 years found that female patients had a significantly higher survival rate when treated by a female physician in the emergency department.
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Lung Cancer Mortality Among Women Projected to Increase 43% by 2030, Study Finds
August 11th 2018The global age-standardized lung cancer mortality rate among women is expected to increase by 43% from 2015 to 2030, while the global age-standardized breast cancer mortality rate is projected to decrease by 9%, according to an analysis published in Cancer Research.
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Individual Characteristics, Not Pollution, Factor Into Which Women Develop ACOS
August 10th 2018Lifestyle factors and individual characteristics, rather than air pollution, explain which women with asthma go on to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), resulting in asthma and COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS), according to a new study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.
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A Blueprint for Building Better Maternity Care Payment Systems
July 3rd 2018In the United States, too many of our mothers are dying during and after childbirth. Costs of childbirth care are high for everyone—for health plans, for taxpayers, and for families. We are moving in the wrong direction, and it is well past time to change course.
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5 Updates on Maternal Health in the United States
June 15th 2018While global maternal mortality rates (MMR), particularly in the developed nations, have been dropping, US MMR has seen a steady rise. Protecting the well-being of women, both during and after pregnancy, is vital. Here are some updates on the status of maternal care in the United States.
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Women Are Still Underrepresented in Clinical Trials for Cardiovascular Disease Drugs
May 2nd 2018While cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among women as well as men, and while both sex and gender differences in CVD and its treatments have been well documented, women continue to be less represented than men in clinical trials of drugs to treat CVD. Among proposed reasons for this phenomenon are the recruitment of younger patients, inclusion criteria that tend to select men, and exclusion criteria that are more common in women.
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Humana Launches Bundled Payment Model to Improve Maternity Outcomes and Cost
April 22nd 2018Humana has launched a new maternity bundled payment model with 5 practices in Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas to improve quality, outcomes, and cost across the entire perinatal episode of care for women with low- to moderate-risk pregnancies.
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Christie's Place: Bringing Together and Empowering Women With HIV
April 7th 2018Christie’s Place, a nonprofit social service organization, puts a large focus on social determinants of health to help their clients not only keep up with their medical care, but also improve their quality of life.
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