Mothers and their children's health (MATCH): a study protocol for a population-based longitudinal cohort.

BACKGROUND: The quality of prenatal care is critical for the prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 64 % of women worldwide have access to over four sessions of prenatal care throughout their pregnancy. Thus, studies that address factors affecting maternal and child health status before and after pregnancy are of immense importance. The primary aim of the mothers and their children's health (MATCH) cohort study is to evaluate the effect of nutrition, sleep quality, and lifestyle on maternal and neonatal outcomes. METHODS: A prospective cohort of > 2500 pregnant women in the first trimester (before 12 weeks' gestation) will be recruited at Arash Women's Hospital in Tehran, Iran between February 2020 and August 2021. All eligible pregnant women will be followed from their first trimester of pregnancy until delivery at four time points and assessed through a series of in-person visits with interviewer-administered questionnaires and telephone interviews. Detailed data will be collected on maternal demographics, lifestyle, medical history, reproductive history, obstetric history, dietary intake, sleep pattern, blood specimens, and anthropometric measurements, alongside paternal demographics, lifestyle, and family history. The outcomes will include antenatal, peripartum, and postnatal maternal complications and infant growth and neurodevelopment. DISCUSSION: The results of the MATCH cohort study will support the development of contextual interventions that can enhance antenatal, peripartum, and postnatal status, neonatal outcomes, and longevity mother and child.

Noninvasive sexing of human preimplantation embryos using RT-PCR in the spent culture media: A proof-of-concept study.

Preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) routinely requires biopsy which is an invasive approach. The aim of this study was to examine a noninvasive approach for sexing of preimplantation embryos using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)/reverse transcriptase-PCR (RT-PCR) based on the presence of SRY DNA/RNA in the spent culture medium. Two groups were evaluated: in group 1, 40 embryos of routine PGT volunteers were cultured individually after biopsy and in group 2, 31 embryos were cultured individually until Day-5 post-fertilization. Each group was further divided into three subgroups: RNA extraction (RE), nucleic acid (NA) and DNase treated (DT). In the NA and DT subgroups, cDNA synthesis was performed directly on culture medium with or without DNase treatment in DT and NA subgroups, respectively. The results of sexing based on the PCR/RT-PCR in the culture medium, were compared with the results of sexing by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) technique. In group 1, all samples were correctly diagnosed. In group 2, five female samples were misdiagnosed. Test's sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 100 %, 94.44 % and 96.88 %, in RE, 100 %, 81.82 % and 93.55 % in DT and 100 %, 71.43 % and 85.71 % in NA, respectively. Preimplantation sexing without embryo biopsy, in the spent embryo culture media using RNA amplification based methods including RE and DT seem to be more reliable while nucleic acid based method, NA, led to the highest misdiagnoses probably due to DNA contamination. Since all male samples were correctly diagnosed in all subgroups of this preliminary study, preimplantation noninvasive sexing on culture medium seems feasible, however all sources of nucleic acid contamination must be carefully avoided.