Women with a pre-pregnancy history of hypertension may be at a higher risk for depression than women who develop hypertension during pregnancy, a single-center study found. Pregnant women with pre-existing hypertension, with or without superimposed preeclampsia, were 55% to 65% more likely to have significant depressive symptoms or to be taking antidepressants. No relationship, however, [...]

The ‘Reaching Out: Involving Fathers in Maternity Care’ pamphlet aims to help men support their partner A guide to help fathers during the pregnancy, birth and postnatal periods of their partners is being published. Men can be left “traumatised” by the experience, according to the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), and the pamphlet called Reaching [...]

Britain’s top children‘s doctor has said that more than 10,000 babies each year suffer serious harm, including death, because their mothers drank alcohol, smoked, over-ate, or took drugs during pregnancy. Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said newborns are suffering permanent harm including brain damage, disability or physical [...]

Studies abound that aim to answer both the question “What causes autism?” and “What is the reason for the increase in incidence and prevalence of autism?” A study published in the November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy and Childhood Autism Spectrum Disorders caught my attention. As both the prevalence [...]

Local Hispanic women who have been in the U.S. longer are more likely to drink during pregnancy than those who haven’t lived here as long or assimilated as much, according to interviews conducted through a health department program. That’s troubling news, given the documented dangers of prenatal alcohol consumption, experts say. “Drinking alcohol can be [...]