Stillbirths

More women with fertility problems are becoming pregnant than ever before and more premature babies are living longer. But those advances in the field of obstetrics are in stark contrast to a less publicized problem: The number of stillbirths remains stubbornly high. Each year, more than 26,000 American women experience a stillbirth -- amounting to about 1 in 200 pregnancies. That number is equal to the cause of all infant deaths combined, federal health officials say.

The infant and fetal death rate among Latinos in Los Angeles County is rising dramatically--a trend that health officials trace in part to the acculturation of Latin American immigrants and their adoption of unhealthy U.S. habits. The Latino infant mortality rate--the rate at which babies die before age 1--has risen by more than a third since 1987, according to county health statistics released Thursday. The rate of stillbirths among Latinos during the same period rose by 45%.

Scientists are trying to figure out why pregnant Kentucky mares are losing foals at a staggering rate this spring in a mystery that has sent fear through the state's $1.2-billion thoroughbred horse industry. "It's got a lot of people spooked, no doubt about it," said Steve Johnson, president of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club. "I've talked to a lot of farm owners who aren't going to sleep very much until they find out what is going on with their mares."

A growing body of research from around the world indicates that smog is exacting a much greater toll than previously known on infants and unborn babies. Scientists have long known that the extreme levels of air pollution found in the developing world can harm babies, and that lesser pollution in U.S. cities can sicken or kill the elderly and infirm. The new research shows that the harmful effects of dirty air can extend even into the womb.

Heather Heisey remembers her newborn son clutching her husband's finger as the infant struggled to breathe before he died, just 20 minutes after birth. She knew six months into her pregnancy that he had a rare and lethal genetic defect preventing his lungs from developing fully--and that he would die almost as soon as he was born in February 1997. The Heiseys named him David and buried him near their home in Louisville, Ky. Since then, the couple, who moved to Elizabethtown, Pa.

Precedent-setting charges of murder against a woman who allegedly went on a two-day drug spree just before delivering a stillborn child were ordered dismissed Friday by a judge in San Benito County. The case had drawn widespread attention as the first attempt by California authorities to prosecute a woman for murder on grounds she had recklessly ingested illegal drugs that led to her child's death. Superior Court Judge R.

Since 1954, when India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, began urging the Soviet Union and the United States to end nuclear weapons testing, completion of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has been an elusive goal of all but two U.S. administrations. Now it seems likely that before the month is out, Bill Clinton will sign the treaty at the United Nations. Ironically, India will not be on board.

Infections by a recently discovered virus may be responsible for a significant fraction of stillbirths, Swedish and American researchers reported Thursday in the journal Birth Defects Research. The Ljungan virus is named after the Swedish river valley where virologist Bo Niklasson of Uppsala University discovered it in voles in 1999. The virus is apparently also common in American rodents, said his coauthor, geneticist William Klitz of the Public Health Institute in Oakland.

Officials have discovered that vegetable oil was added to Jalisco Mexican-style cheese, a practice prohibited by state law, but a Jalisco Mexican Products spokesman said the oil would not have contained the bacteria linked to a disease that has been blamed for deaths and stillbirths. The vegetable oil, which was apparently used an an inexpensive substitute for milk fat, was discovered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week.

Mexico has banned the import of live pigs from the United States after the detection of what officials here call "the mystery pig disease," an Agriculture Ministry spokesman said Friday. He said the government decided on the ban, effective next week, following a report by a national commission that U.S. pigs were carrying the disease, which causes abortion and stillbirths in sows and severe breathing problems in their offspring.