http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. While global attention has for decades been focused on reducing maternal mortality, population-based data on other causes of death among women of reproductive age has been virtually non-existent. A study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that non-communicable diseases accounted for 48 percent of 1,107 investigated female deaths in rural Bangladesh between 2002 and 2007. The findings lend urgency to review global health priorities to address neglected and potentially fatal non-communicable diseases affecting rural women in South Asia. The study is published in the May 2013 edition of the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-non-communicable-diseases-account-adult-female.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Tue, 14 May 2013 16:43:43 EST news287768612 For women with abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding during early pregnancy, patient history and clinical examination alone are insufficient to indicate or eliminate the possibility of ectopic pregnancy, while transvaginal sonography appears to be the single best diagnostic method for evaluating suspected ectopic pregnancy, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the April 24 issue of JAMA. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-methods-procedures-diagnosis-ectopic-pregnancy.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Tue, 23 Apr 2013 16:54:34 EST news285954867 Throughout history, more women have died in childbirth than men have died in battle, Mahmoud Fathalla, founder of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, told attendees at the recent Global Maternal Health Conference in Arusha, Tanzania, co-sponsored by Harvard School of Public Health's Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) and Management and Development for Health (MDH), a Tanzanian nonprofit. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-women-childbirth-maternal-health-advocates.html Health Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:30:01 EST news281952772 A detailed letter entitled "Methodological flaws in the estimation of abortion in Latin America: Author's reply to Singh and Bankole" was published today in Ginecología y Obstetricia de México (Ginecol Obstet Mex), a Mexican peer-reviewed journal specialized in Obstetrics and Gynecology. The letter is a reply by researchers from the Institute of Molecular Epidemiology (MELISA) to researchers from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) regarding methodological flaws that led to a significant overestimation of induced abortions figures in the Federal District of Mexico (Mexico DF) before an after abortion legalization at this state. "Our letter is part of an intense scientific debate in Ginecología y Obstetrica de México that addresses issues raised in a previous article by Susheela Singh and Akinrinola Bankole in representation of AGI regarding our evaluation of the methodology employed to estimate abortion figures; we provide additional information supporting conclusions of our multinational collaborative study published two weeks ago in the International Journal of Women's Health, showing that abortion figures and maternal mortality rates were largely overestimated in Mexico" said Elard Koch, the Chilean epidemiologist leading the research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-evidence-abortion-figures-overestimated-mexico.html Health Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:22:57 EST news275044967 A collaborative study conducted in Mexico by researchers of the University of West Virginia-Charleston (USA), Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (Mexico), Universidad de Chile and the Institute of Molecular Epidemiology of the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (Chile), revealed that IPAS-Mexico overestimated rates of maternal and abortion mortality up to 35% over the last two decades. The research, recently published in the International Journal of Women's Health highlights that Mexico shows a 82.7% reduction in maternal mortality between 1957 and 2010, from 216.6 to 37.5 deaths per 100,000 live births; for the period between 1990 and 2010, there was a 30.6% decrease in maternal mortality. "These results directly contradict the figures recently reported by researchers from the IPAS-Mexico, who not only fail to detect a significant progress in maternal health since 1990, but also substantially overestimated maternal mortality rates in Mexico" said Elard Koch, the Chilean epidemiologist that led the research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-overestimation-abortion-deaths-mexico-hinders.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Thu, 06 Dec 2012 09:00:09 EST news274002446 The European Commission on Thursday pledged 42 million euros to Liberia's president and Nobel peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to help halve one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-eu-liberia-mn-euros-maternal.html Health Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:24:47 EST news271603472 Every 90 seconds, a mother dies in pregnancy or of childbirth complications—a tragic statistic, but one that may drive efforts to improve health care in developing countries, experts gathered at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said Friday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mothers-peril-urgency-frustration-discussion.html Health Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:22:56 EST news268467761 Frequent antenatal screening has allowed doctors to detect and treat malaria in its early stages on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, dramatically reducing the number of deaths amongst pregnant women. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-frequent-antenatal-screening-maternal-mortality.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:00:03 EST news261847114 In the first two years following the death of a child, there is a 133% increase in the risk of the mother dying, a new study from the University of Notre Dame shows. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-child-dies-mom-early-death.html Health Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:47:37 EST news260038038 Better care has cut the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth by nearly half in the past two decades, but there is still a death every two minutes, according to UN figures released Wednesday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-maternal-deaths.html Health Wed, 16 May 2012 05:30:01 EST news256364124 A newly published article in the journal Nursing for Women's Health highlights the importance of a woman's ability to time her childbearing. The author asserts that contraception is a means of health promotion and women who work with their health care providers to ensure they are healthy prior to conceiving can minimize their risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-pregnancy-important-health-women.html Health Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:46:12 EST news253363561 About 1000 women die each day in childbirth or from preventable complications related to pregnancy, humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said Thursday. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-women-day-die-childbirth-msf.html Health Thu, 08 Mar 2012 11:30:02 EST news250426718 The impact of unsafe water and sanitation on the death rates of children under five and mothers in the year after childbirth has been quantified for the first time by Canadian-based researchers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-quantifies-impact-unsafe-poor-sanitation.html Health Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:40:01 EST news248501729 A large regional hospital in Ghana saw a reduction in maternal and infant deaths after continuous quality improvement (QI) initiatives were put into place through a collaborative partnership. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-quality-moms-babies-africa.html Health Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:16:01 EST news246125755 The largest ever study to assess the effects of malaria and its treatment in the first trimester of pregnancy has shown that the disease significantly increases the risk of miscarriage, but that treating with antimalarial drugs is relatively safe and reduces this risk. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-malaria-pregnancy-trimester.html Obstetrics & gynaecology Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:45:14 EST news242969689 Some 2.6 million third trimester stillbirths worldwide occur every year, according to the first comprehensive set of stillbirth estimates, published today within a special series in the medical journal The Lancet. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-stillbirths-invisible-health-problem.html Health Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:20:01 EST news221973134