Pregnancies

A prenatal blood test that can detect Down syndrome in a fetus in early pregnancy is now available to doctors in 20 U.S. cities, says the developer of the test, Sequenom Inc . The test is a milestone in prenatal testing because it's the first non-invasive way to detect trisomy 21, the most common cause of Down syndrome. Until now, women have had to undergo amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, both invasive tests, to detect Down syndrome. A more recent strategy was to combine ultrasound testing with blood tests, but that test required confirmation with amniocentesis or CVS. The blood test measures fetal DNA in the mother's bloodstream.

Women who reported having had a fever during pregnancy were more likely to give birth to a baby who would later be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or a development delay, says a major new study. But the babies of women who treated their fevers with medication fared no worse than babies whose mothers recalled having suffered no fevers at all. The findings, wrote the authors,  "suggest that anti-fever medication used to control fever during pregnancy can reduce or eliminate" the apparent link between maternal fever and autism.

The numbers of abortion s performed annually worldwide has held steady in recent years, but the proportion of abortions that are considered unsafe is rising, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization. The study also found that about one in five pregnancies were terminated in 2008 and that “restrictive abortion laws” do not seem to deter women from seeking the procedure. One of the primary motivations for the study was to determine whether the number of unsafe abortions was increasing or decreasing, because these abortions are a major contributor to morbidity and mortality among women of childbearing age (between the ages of 15 and 44)

Health experts estimate that half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. That adds up to about 3 million accidental pregnancies every year - and, as a result, about 1.2 million abortions. About half of these unintended pregnancies can be traced to failures of condoms, birth control pills and other forms of contraception. (In the other half of cases, couples fail to use contraception entirely.) Which types of birth control are to blame, and why? To find out, researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis offered free contraception to 7,486 women and followed them for two to three years to see how they fared.

We're careful about what we call an accident in my house. When my son breaks a windowpane playing soccer in the living room, it's no accident. When my daughter destroys the finish on the coffee table removing polish from her nails, again, no accident. Most people throw the term "accident" around more loosely, however. They use it to describe everything from spilled milk to car crashes ? including unintended pregnancies. More than one-third of all pregnancies in the United States are mistimed or unwanted, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Think back on what you talked about with friends and family at your last gathering. The latest game of your favorite team? "American Idol"? An addictive hobby? The new movie blockbuster? In a serious moment, maybe job prospects, Afghanistan, the economic mess? We live in an information-drenched environment, one in which sports and favorite programs are just a click away. And the ease with which we can do this allows us to focus on mostly comforting subjects that divert our attention from increasingly real, long-term problems.

About 40% of births in Los Angeles County each year are the result of unplanned pregnancies, which can endanger the health of babies, according to a study released by the county's Department of Public Health. The figure is based primarily on a county survey completed in 2006 of more than 5,200 women ages 13 to 56 who had recently given birth. The percentage of unplanned pregnancies was about the same among women who gave birth and those who experienced stillbirths and miscarriages, according to Dr. Susie Baldwin, chief of the department's health assessment unit, which produced the study.

China reported today that about a third of all pregnancies in the nation in 1984 were aborted. Health Ministry officials told a press briefing that out of 27 million pregnancies, 18 million resulted in live births in China last year, while 8.89 million were aborted. The officials strongly denied that authorities forced abortions as part of efforts to restrict population growth. In August, the U.S. Congress blocked funds intended for a U.N.

About to have unprotected sex to ring in the new year? Think about the critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle! Or the Florida panther, or the Lange's metalmark butterfly, or any of hundreds of other endangered species. And then call the Hump Smarter Hotline. The hotline, part of the Center for Biological Diversity 's 7 Billion and Counting Project, aims to persuade randy revelers to practice safe sex and avoid unwanted pregnancies. Aw, you know you want to call it now, even if just out of curiosity.

Two checks totaling $24,000 were handed over Friday to begin the Coalition Concerned With Adolescent Pregnancy's first corporate-supported program to prevent unplanned teen-age pregnancies in Orange County. The checks were presented by Jeff Sherman, president of Armor All Products, who was representing the McKesson Foundation, and Tony Zarifis and Daryl Carlson, store directors for Mervyn's Department Stores.

"What to Expect When You're Expecting"is essentially the Hallmark card version of the sage, saucy and very specific how-to bestseller by Heidi Murkoff. The movie's sentimental squibs on pregnancy merely skim the surface scratched so thoroughly by the book. As Murkoff knew and mined so well, there is a lot of nature-made comedy to be found in the discomforts of distended bodies, raging hormones and altered relationships. There is also pathos and pain, especially for couples who can't conceive.

When I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I pulled out the storage bin containing the maternity clothes from my first pregnancy and was instantly depressed. After nine months of wearing a Diane von Furstenberg maternity wrap dress and Lilly Pulitzer maternity shift in heavy rotation — and I mean heavy in every sense — I couldn't face another pregnancy in these same few outfits. But at $300 for designer maternity dresses I would wear another half a year at most, I wasn't prepared to splurge on an entirely new pregnancy wardrobe.

Rumors that Megan Fox is pregnant popped up again Monday, but the actress and husband Brian Austin Green still haven't confirmed or denied the news. In late March, Star magazine cited an unnamed source who said Fox, 25, and Green, 38, had just found out about the pregnancy and were telling only “close friends and family members” at that time. E! Online put its stamp on the news Monday, citing an exclusive, unnamed, nondescript source as giving confirmation of the baby on board - and saying pretty much nothing else.

Teen births have fallen to record lows in the United States, continuing an overall trend -- partly due to programs aimed at preventing pregnancies among teenagers, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. The U.S. teen birth rate declined 9% from 2009 to 2010, reaching 34.3 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19, the CDC reported . From 1991 through 2010, the rate dropped by 44%. Teen child-bearing has been generally on a long-term decline in the United States since the late 1950s, but the United States continues to have one of the highest such rates among industrialized countries.

Pregnant women might now have one more good reason to watch their diet and exercise: A new study links autism and developmental delays in young children to metabolic conditions, like obesity and diabetes, in their mothers. The findings, published in Monday's edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that women who had diabetes or hypertension or were obese were 1.61 times as likely as healthy women to have children with autism spectrum disorders. They also were 2.35 times as likely to have children with developmental delays.

Lashinda Demus had her life mapped out, and it included becoming a mom. That was natural. The Inglewood native and Long Beach Wilson High track standout, second of three sisters, grew up surrounded by cousins and foster children her parents took in. She would have a career as a world-class 400-meter hurdler, a husband and, later, her own family. She married former runner Jamel Mayrant, whom she met through a mutual friend. She made the 2004 U.S. Olympic team but didn't reach the finals in Athens.

It was with great expectations that Barbara Johnson tossed out the last of her birth-control pills. She and her husband happily began planning for the baby's arrival nine months hence. After all, they had read that half of all American pregnancies are unwanted "accidents." How simple it should be for those who want a child? Convinced that conception would follow almost instantaneously the act of unprotected sex, the couple made no other adjustments. They made love on the weekends.

It was supposed to make every child a wanted child, give women control over their bodies and grant couples worry-free sex. Such were the aspirations of health professionals worldwide when the medication now known simply as "the pill" arrived on the market 50 years ago. It was the first birth-control method that did not require use in the heat of the moment, the first that could be used by a woman without her partner's knowledge or cooperation....

Pregnancy is known to cause a remission in symptoms of multiple sclerosis in women who have MS prior to becoming pregnant. Now a study has found that multiple pregnancies may help prevent MS from ever developing. The study, published online Wednesday in the journa l Neurology, reviewed information on 282 men and women who received a diagnosis of central nervous demyelination. That's a condition that reflects early symptoms of MS but falls short of an actual MS diagnosis. The researchers compared those people to 542 healthy men and women.

Some women with depression who become pregnant face a troubling decision: whether to continue taking antidepressant medication to keep the depression at bay even though the medications may harm the fetus. The latest on a series of studies on this issue, published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, shows benefits and risks to continuing medication during pregnancy and concludes that more study is needed on the topic. As many as 6% of pregnant women take antidepressants.