Study of maternal and fetal outcomes in obese women.

Background: Obesity in Indian women had increased from 10.6% to 14.8% in India. Mothers who are overweight or obese during pregnancy and childbirth cause significant antenatal, intrapartum, postpartum and also neonatal complications. Aim and Objective: The present study aimed to explore various maternal and fetal outcomes influenced by maternal obesity. The objective was to find the effect of obesity on maternal and perinatal outcome among obese pregnant women compared to those of normal weight. Methods: The study was conducted in antenatal women attending antenatal outpatient department of of Obstetrics and Gynecology in a teriary care referral hospital in Mumbai. Results recorded in simple percentages. Results: Eighteen percent cases developed gestational diabetes mellitus during their antenatal period and 15% developed gestational hypertension. 44% patients underwent lower segment caesarean section. The need for induction of labour and caesarean section was found to be 37% which is significantly higher. Increased NICU admissions due to hypoglycemia or congenital malformations,prematurity was found to be on a higher side. Conclusions: It was clearly evident from the present study that maternal obesity had adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Maternal obesity was strongly associated with antenatal complications like gestational diabetes mellitus, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia and increase in need for induction of labour and operative interference.

Rabies encephalitis in a preschool child following postexposure prophylaxis.

We report a case of rabies encephalitis in a 4½-year-old male child with an exposure to a suspect rabid dog. The child developed rabies 25 days after receiving postexposure prophylaxis. Rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) is currently administered according to body weight. In high-risk exposures over the head and neck, local administration of RIG over and above the body weight depending on the site, size, and severity of exposure may help to prevent rabies death. There is a need for further studies to generate new evidence in this regard.

Intrinsic nonlinearities in the mechanics of hard sphere suspensions.

The onset of nonlinear responses in near hard sphere suspensions is characterized as a function of oscillatory frequency and strain amplitude. At low frequencies where the viscous behavior dominates, the onset of nonlinearities is driven by increases in rate of strain. At high deformation frequency, where suspension mechanics is dominated by an elastic response, the nonlinear responses occur when deformation exceeds a characteristic strain. This strain is associated with the transient confinement of particles by nearest neighbors and its volume fraction dependence is through cage parameters derived from the high frequency elastic modulus. The onset of nonlinear responses takes on a universal behavior when deformation frequency is normalized by the characteristic time governing the shift from viscous to elastic behavior indicating that this transition is associated with transient particle localization and is expected to be observed for all volume fractions where pair interactions are important.