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Stress Deforms Brain and Behavior

Stress is not just an uncomfortable feeling of nervousness and tension. It’s a treacherous force that actually remolds the brain at the same time as it warps behavior, according to a bevy of neuroscientists at a recent conference in Washington, D.C.
   
“Stress causes [brain] neurons to shrink or grow [abnormally],” said Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University, in New York. “The wear and tear on the body from lots of stress changes the nervous system.”
   
Stress is “particularly worrying in the developing brain, which appears to be programmed by early stressful experience,” he said.

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Young Mothers Suffer More Depression

Females who give birth before age 23 are considerably more likely to experience clinical depression during pregnancy than older mothers, a recent study shows.

In addition, the British researchers report, younger mothers' children more commonly suffer from emotional problems and have a below-average IQ.

These psychological deficits were found to be more likely in cases in which mothers were depressed or smoked during their pregnancies, and in which they failed to breast-feed following childbirth. ( Read more about Young Mothers Suffer More Depression)

Weight-Loss Surgery Helps Obese Moms' Pregnancies

Women who underwent dramatic weight loss after bariatric surgery had fewer pregnancy and delivery problems and fewer newborn complications than obese pregnant mothers, according to a recent study. The investigation, which analyzed the data from 75 clinical studies, discovered that pregnant women who had undergone weight-loss surgery (laparoscopic adjustable band surgery) experienced fewer complications than obese women. In particular, 0 percent of weight-loss women suffered from gestational diabetes, versus 22.1 percent of obese women, and 0 percent of weight-loss women had pre-eclampsia (pregnancy-induced high blood pressure), versus 3.1 percent of obese women. Also, women with bariatric surgery had less weight gain than the others.

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Pregnancy and LASIK Don't Mix

When a woman is pregnant or breastfeeding, her hormonal balance shifts dramatically. This causes her body to retain more fluid. And when this happens, her eyes' lenses swell, too, making a correct diagnosis to fix her vision problems with LASIK surgery all but impossible. When the lens swells, it changes how a woman sees, making her more nearsighted, farsighted or astigmatic. But when her pregnancy is over, and when she stops lactating, her hormones - and her eyes' lenses - return to normal. If a LASIK diagnosis is performed on a woman during the period when her lenses are distorted, the readings will be invalid for her normal bodily state.

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Women's Weight Does Not Affect Sexual Activity

Here is one area in which weight may not have a negative effect on a health activity - sex!. In a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology research showed that overweight women are having more sex than their thinner sisters.

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The Benefits of Flu Shots During Pregnancy

Despite the long-standing recommendation for pregnant women to receive a flu shot, three-quarters of women responding to a national survey were unaware or unsure of these recommendations. Additionally, only 20 percent of women who are currently pregnant plan to get a flu shot this flu season. The survey, conducted on behalf of the National Women's Health Resource Center, also revealed that some women even question whether the flu shot itself can pose a health risk to the baby.

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In Vitro Fertilization Improves

Clinical results from Down Under suggest that recent advances in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) can double the chances of having a baby for women in their early 40s. And the success rate for this group is increasing faster than any other's. The successes resulted from improved media for culturing embryos and a better technique for selecting those with the best chances for developing in a healthy manner, said Peter Illingworth, president of the Fertility Society of Australia. The new procedure involved transferring embryos into recipient women at the blastocyst stage (five or six days after fertilization), rather than at the cleavage stage (two to three days after). This allowed doctors to better assess which embryos had the best survival chances.

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Is It Safe to Drink Small Amounts of Alcohol During Pregnancy?

The National Institute For Health and Clinical Excellence (or NICE) recently claims that pregnant women can drink up to 1.5 units of alcohol (or one and a half small glasses of wine) without harming the unborn child. This comes after the Department of Health advises that expectant mothers should abstain from drinking entirely. So between these contradicting sets of advice, where is the truth?

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Prenatal Multivitamins May Reduce Risk of Pediatric Cancers

Moms-to-be, take your multi-vitamins. It's become widely accepted that mothers taking folic acid during pregnancy can help reduce the risk of several birth defects. But a new study at the University of Toronto finds a correlation between pre-natal multivitamins containing folic acid and the decreased risk of several pediatric cancers: leukemia, brain tumors, and neuroblastoma (a malignant tumor in nerve tissue). This report in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics found that taking a multivitamin with folic acid before and during early pregnancy could reduce the risk of leukemia by 36%, childhood brain tumors by 27%, and neuroblastoma by 47%.

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Pesticides Found in Pregnant Women

Researchers have found the presence of numerous harmful pesticides in the placentas of pregnant women. According to a study by the University of Granada, fifteen different substances linked to pesticides have been found in pregnant women. Additionally, 100% of the women involved in the study had contamination with an average of 8 pesticides in their placentas during pregnancy. Researchers say these organochlorine substances may be potentially harmful to genitor-urinary development.

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