Women's Health

The 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.

Patients 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.

Rheumatoid 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.

Ultrasounds 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.

A 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.

Systemic 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.

Modifiable 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.

A 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.

A 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.

New 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.

In 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.

A 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.

Chronic diseases, insufficient access to care, and social determinants of health are targets that can help reduce maternal mortality.

The 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.

Lifestyle 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.

While the connection between diabetes and cancer has been known, this study was the first to show that women with diabetes face a higher risk than men with the disease.

Findings were consistent with earlier studies that link long work hours and diabetes as well as long periods of sitting with diabetes and obesity.

In 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.

The risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children was higher in mothers with type 1 diabetes (T1D), a recent study found.

Haywood Brown, MD, immediate past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecology, discusses the Alliance for Innovation in Maternal health (AIM) program which is designed to decrease the top-leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality.

While 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.

Mary Norine Walsh, MD, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, discusses the risks for pregnant women with hypertension.

Mary Norine Walsh, MD, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, discusses the cause of the recent increase in maternal mortality, and the importance of team-based care to address it.

While 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.

Even though her final stretch at the helm of Planned Parenthood was not easy, Cecile Richards told the nation's obstetricians she is optimistic because of the activism she sees among women and girls at the grassroots level. "Women are on fire," she said.