Prenatal care and sea fish.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effects of a prenatal nutritional counselling programme about the benefits of increasing dietary intake of sea fish. STUDY DESIGN: A hospital and parity matched observational comparison study. Four-hundred ninety-nine pregnant women, attending selected clinics for antenatal care, before 20 weeks gestation, were offered a 20-min nutritional advice session. They were encouraged to increase the intake of oily sea fish and reduce intake of food rich in transfatty acid. For each woman interviewed a corresponding control was established. MAIN RESULTS: The mean birth weight was slightly higher in the study group (3349 g vs. 3284 g) and the difference persisted after adjusting for gestational age (85 g/week vs. 83 g/week). The rate of delivery before 37 weeks was lower in the study group (7.3% versus 9.5%). The mean neonatal head circumference was greater in the study group (34.7 cm vs. 34.4 cm). CONCLUSION: The effect of advice to increase intake of oily fish warrants further study.

New reasons and new ways to study birth physiology.

The age of cesarean sections on request, epidurals and drips of oxytocin is a turning point in the history of childbirth. Until recently women could not give birth without releasing a complex cocktail of 'love hormones'. Today, in many countries, most women have babies without releasing these specific hormones. The questions must be raised in terms of civilization. This turning point occurs at the very time when several scientific disciplines suggest that the way human beings are born has long-term consequences, particularly in terms of sociability, aggressiveness or, in other words, 'capacity to love'. I find it relevant to combine data provided by perspectives as diverse as ethology, animal experiments, studies of the behavioral effects of hormones that fluctuate in the perinatal period, and a branch of epidemiology I call 'Primal Health Research'. This combination of data offers new reasons to disturb the physiological processes as little as possible. We are also at a time when a physiological approach can help to rediscover the basic needs of women in labor. These women firstly need to be protected against any sort of neocortical stimulation. We must keep in mind what the main stimuli of neocortical activity are: language, bright lights, the 'feeling of being observed' and situations associated with a release of catecholamines.

The unknown human infant.

What is physiological? It is often difficult to answer this kind of question in the field of human reproduction. That is why we propose to take, as a reference, a population of one hundred infants whose lifestyle is, in many respects, different from the standard Western norm. They were born at home without any drugs, share the mother's bed, were breastfed for more than a year, and so on. This study raises questions such as: --Is the neonatal loss of weight physiological? --What are the physiological sleep-wake patterns of the human infant? --Are the transitional phenomena normal stages of human development? --Why are some infants ill when their mother loses weight?

The ethnological approach--comparing cultures.

In most known societies, until now, it has been an advantage to moderate and control the different aspects of the capacity to love, including love of nature, and to develop the human potential for aggressiveness. The greater the need to develop aggression and the ability to destroy life, the more intrusive the rituals and cultural beliefs in the period around birth have become.

Synthetic oxytocin and breastfeeding: reasons for testing an hypothesis.

Synthetic oxytocin is widely used in developed countries and in emerging countries as well. It is the most common medical intervention in childbirth. A great variety of side effects are plausible. There are in particular theoretical reasons to test the hypothesis that the increasing incidence of breastfeeding difficulties and the frequent earlier than desired cessation of breastfeeding are related to the use of synthetic oxytocin during labour. There have already been some studies that tend to support this hypothesis. Four hundred of the 7465 children born in 2006 at the Carlos Haya University Hospital (Malaga, Spain) were randomly selected. By interviewing the mothers, information about feeding type and duration was obtained in 2011 for 316 children. Among the 189 children who were born after labours induced or augmented with synthetic oxytocin, the odds ratio for bottle-feeding was 1.451 and the odds ratio for withdrawal at 3 months was 2.294. In addition, the Battelle Developmental Inventory was used to assess at age five 148 children (84 born with synthetic oxytocin): the odds ratio for neuropsychological development disorders after use of oxytocin was 1.46. The main limitation of such a preliminary study is that in the context of a tertiary Spanish hospital the possible effects of synthetic oxytocin on the quality and duration of breastfeeding cannot be easily dissociated from the effects of other components of pharmacological assistance during labour, particularly epidural fentanyl (a synthetic opioid analgesic). This comment is valid for all studies exploring the side effects of synthetic oxytocin in obstetric units of developed countries, including explorations through videotapes of the effects of synthetic oxytocin on primitive neonatal reflexes. It is also valid for studies exploring the side effects of obstetric analgesia without taking into account the use of synthetic oxytocin. This is why we underline the importance of conducting such studies in emerging countries (e.g. China and Brazil) where synthetic oxytocin is widely used while there are no epidural services. Studies of oxytocin given electively at the onset of third stage of labour (after the birth of the neonate) should help to interpret possible effects on the quality and duration of breastfeeding.