Reducing Infant Mortality

This is an awesome video on reducing infant mortality here in the states. Take the time and watch it - it is under 17 minutes long.

Reducing Infant Mortality from Debby Takikawa on Vimeo.

Low Choline Level in Pregnancy Tied to Birth Defects

Anencephaly, spina bifida linked to nutrient found in foods, study shows

Posted August 14, 2009

FRIDAY, Aug. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Low blood levels of the nutrient choline during pregnancy increases the risk of brain and spinal-cord defects in newborns, U.S. researchers report.

They focused on two types of neural tube birth defects -- anencephaly and spina bifida. Anencephaly is a lethal condition in which the brain and skull don't develop, and spina bifida is a spinal-cord malformation that causes paralysis and lifelong disability.

The Stanford University School of Medicine team compared pregnancy blood samples from 80 women who gave birth to children with anencephaly and spina bifida to pregnancy blood samples from 409 women whose infants had no birth defects.

The results showed that choline levels were linked to risk of neural tube defects. Choline is found in egg yolks, soy, wheat germ and meats.

Women with the lowest blood choline levels during pregnancy were 2.4 times more likely to have infants with neural tube defects than women with average blood choline levels. Women with the highest choline levels had the lowest risk.

The study appears in the Aug. 14 issue of Epidemiology.

Primary author Gary Shaw, a professor of neonatology, noted that prenatal vitamins contain little or no choline. For women planning to get pregnant

, "the best source for choline is still eating a variety of foods," he said in a university news release.

Fruits, Vegetables May Protect Against Upper Respiratory Tract Infection During Pregnancy

July 16, 2009 — Consuming at least 7 servings per day of fruits and vegetables may reduce the risk for upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) during pregnancy, according to the results of a cohort study reported June 25 in the online issue of Public Health Nutrition.

"Pregnant women may require more fruits and vegetables than usual because of the extra demands on the body," senior author Martha M. Werler, MPH, ScD, from the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University in Massachusetts, said in a news release.

Werler, along with coauthor Lin Li, from the Department of Epidemiology at Boston University, asked 1034 North American women to report retrospectively on their fruit and vegetable consumption during the 6 months before their pregnancy and episodes of URTI during the first half of pregnancy. Cox proportional hazards models allowed calculation of multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs).

Compared with women in the lowest quartile (median, 1.91 servings per day) of total fruit and vegetable intake, those in the highest quartile (median, 8.54 servings per day) had an adjusted HR of URTI of 0.74 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.53 - 1.05) for the 5-month follow-up and 0.61 (95% CI, 0.39 - 0.97) for the 3-month follow-up. Intake of 6.71 servings per day was associated with a moderate risk reduction for URTI.

For the 3-month, but not the 5-month, follow-up, there was a dose-related decrease in URTI risk based on quartile of fruit and vegetable intake (P for trend = .03 at 3 months). However, there was no apparent association between either fruit or vegetable intake alone and the risk for URTI at 5 months or 3 months.

"Women who consume more fruits and vegetables have a moderate reduction in risk of URTI during pregnancy, and this benefit appears to be derived from both fruits and vegetables instead of either alone," the study authors write.

Limitations of this study include reliance on recall of diet and URTI, possible misclassification of exposure because of the timing of data collection, and possible residual confounding.

"If diets enriched with fruits and vegetables truly have a preventive or protective effect against URTI in pregnant women, the public health implications may be considerable given that URTI as well as treatments for URTI symptoms may affect fetal development," the study authors conclude. "However, the limitations discussed above make it necessary to replicate our findings through studies specially designed to address this question."

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research supported this study. The study authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Public Health Nutr. Published online June 25, 2009.