Manual vacuum aspiration for postpartum pyometra.

Postpartum pyometra is rare; however, it may lead to sepsis. The main initial symptoms are fever, lower abdominal pain and foul-smelling lochia. The treatment includes antibiotic administration and surgical drainage. This is a report of postpartum pyometra following a caesarean section that was successfully treated with manual vacuum aspiration, a simple and minimally invasive option. Other treatment options include pyometra reduction using placenta forceps and the placement of an intrauterine drainage catheter.

Maternal dietary patterns in pregnancy and fetal growth in Japan: the Osaka Maternal and Child Health Study.

Maternal nutritional status during pregnancy is an important determinant of fetal growth. Although the effects of several nutrients and foods have been well examined, little is known about the relationship of overall maternal diet in pregnancy to fetal growth, particularly in non-Western populations. We prospectively examined the relationship of maternal dietary patterns in pregnancy to neonatal anthropometric measurements at birth and risk of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) birth among 803 Japanese women with live-born, singleton, term deliveries. Maternal diet in pregnancy was assessed using a validated, self-administered diet history questionnaire. Dietary patterns from thirty-three predefined food groups (g/4184 kJ) were extracted by cluster analysis. The following three dietary patterns were identified: the 'meat and eggs' (n 326), 'wheat products', with a relatively high intake of bread, confectioneries and soft drinks (n 303), and 'rice, fish and vegetables' (n 174) patterns. After adjustment for potential confounders, women in the 'wheat products' pattern had infants with the significantly lowest birth weight (P = 0·045) and head circumference (P = 0·036) among those in the three dietary patterns. Compared with women in the 'rice, fish and vegetables' pattern, women in the 'wheat products' pattern had higher odds of having a SGA infant for weight (multivariate OR 5·2, 95 % CI 1·1, 24·4), but this was not the case for birth length or head circumference. These results suggest that a diet high in bread, confectioneries, and soft drinks and low in fish and vegetables during pregnancy might be associated with a small birth weight and an increased risk of having a SGA infant.

Beverage consumption and the prevalence of tooth loss in pregnant Japanese women: the Osaka Maternal and Child Health Study.

Recently, there has been growing interest in the impact of beverage consumption on dental health because changes have occurred in the types and quantities of beverage consumed. This cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between consumption frequencies of various beverages and the prevalence of tooth loss among young adult women. Study subjects were 1002 pregnant Japanese women. Tooth loss was defined as previous extraction of one or more teeth. Dietary habits were evaluated by a validated dietary history questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals of tooth loss. Adjustment was made for age, gestation, parity, cigarette smoking, passive smoking at home and at work, family income, education, changes in diet in the previous one month, season when data were collected and body mass index. Of the 1002 subjects, 256 women had lost one or more teeth. Coffee consumption was independently associated with an increased prevalence of tooth loss. When subjects were divided according to consumption of coffee with or without sugar, an increased prevalence of tooth loss was found only in subjects who consumed coffee without addition of sugar. Compared with the lowest consumption of green tea, the intermediate but not the highest consumption of green tea was associated with an increased prevalence of tooth loss. There was no measurable association of intake of milk, black tea, cola, or 100% fruit juice with the prevalence of tooth loss. The findings suggest that coffee consumption might be associated with an increased prevalence of tooth loss among young adult women.

The breath ammonia measurement of the hemodialysis with a QCM-NH3 sensor.

Recently, expired gases are analyzed non-invasively for monitoring the substances in the blood. Breath ammonia has been shown to correlate with BUN (blood urea nitrogen) and Cr (creatinine), both of which are indicators of solute removal in hemodialysis. In this study, breath ammonia concentration was continuously measured using a crystal oscillator QCM (quartz crystal microbalance) during the expiration of patients undergoing dialysis treatment. The results show that NH3 (ammonia) decreased gradually as the treatment proceeded. A strong correlation was observed between changes in the frequency of the QCM gas sensor and both the pre-dialysis BUN level (r=0.71, p<0.05) and the post-dialysis BUN level (r=0.90, p<0.05). NH3 was found to fall precipitously during dialysis. The differences were statistically significant. In addition, we found a statistically significant correlation between BUN and NH3 in expired gas. These results suggest that continuous measurement of NH3 is useful to assess the status of solute removal during hemodialysis.

Communication network analysis in maternity hospital bulletin board system.

Recent changes in Japanese social environments consequently dropped total fertility rate, and poor interpersonal relationships in local communities have aggravated the environments for childbirth and child-rearing. Under such circumstances, we introduced a bulletin board system (BBS) to an official web-site of a maternity hospital to set up a community for its patients for communication regarding childbirth and the like. Based on the logs from BBS, we graphed types of communication among its users with to describe topologies. Additionally, we calculated degrees of centralization of entire networks and found the hospital role as the administrator becomes smaller as inter-user communication becomes more brisk. The analysis of contents of respective threads also revealed that main topics shifted from gestational matters to postnatal and child-rearing as communication became more brisk, which indicates those postnatal users are also strongly conscious with gestational and progestational contents and contribute to supporting the entire BBS.