Healthsifter by mary desmond pinkowish, since 2003

Babies Make Mom's Brain Grow

Ever hear the adage that each baby has a chunk of your brain in his hand when he’s born?

Wrong—if the findings of some preliminary studies conducted by neuroscientists at Yale-New Haven Hospital are confirmed.

They compared brain MRIs made in 19 women a few weeks before and 3-4 months after they gave birth and found that several areas of the gray matter in the mothers grew after the babies were born. Specifically, these were the hypothalamus, substantia nigra and amygdala, parietal lobe, and prefrontal cortex--areas that are responsible for motherly motivation (=just suck up those repeated awakenings at night), processing of reward and emotion, sensory integration and—believe it or not--judgement and reasoning. Relatively rapid brain changes like these apparently are not seen in adults on a routine basis.

Are the changes caused by hormones or the social and tactile interactions between mother and child? Future studies may include adoptive mothers to answer that question. Speaking of mothers, what about fathers? Studies are planned to see if fatherhood produces changes in men’s brains, too. The scientists will also try to reproduce these findings in a larger group of women.

And one more thing—don’t be embarrassed to gush about your baby and bore your family and friends with endless streams of photos. Women who were the most enthusiastic about their babies had the largest gains in gray matter. Chicken or egg? Who knows, but it’s nice for the baby.

Read more about this at ScienceDaily. The original article appears in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience. The lead investigator was Pilyoung Kim, PhD, who is now working at the National Institute of Mental Health.   

How to Deliver a Baby, Faster

I wish I'd known this a few years ago....from today's New York Times:

Lying down during the first stage of labor may slow the process, a new review of studies has found, but if the expectant mother sits, stands or walks around she may safely bring matters to a quicker conclusion. 

The analysis, published April 14 in The Cochrane Collaboration, combined data from 21 studies with a total of 3,706 women.

They go on to describe that remaining active could shorten the first stage of labor by 1 hour. If you think that's not much, you haven't been there.

...

C-Section Video

Pregnant? Worried that you'll have a C-section? Wondering what it's like? Watch this video from the Mayo Clinic. You'll get a step-by-step look at the whole procedure. It's a bit sanitized, but you'll get the idea.

Gardasil, or Diligent Pap Testing?

The New York Times reports on the two studies that were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. Here's a sample:

“Despite great expectations and promising results of clinical trials, we still lack sufficient evidence of an effective vaccine against cervical cancer,” Dr. Charlotte J. Haug, editor of The Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association, wrote in an editorial in Thursday’s issue of The New England Journal. “With so many essential questions still unanswered, there is good reason to be cautious.”

In her article, Dr. Haug points out the vaccines have been studied for a relatively short period — both were licensed in 2006 and have been studied in clinical trails for at most six and a half years. Researchers have not yet demonstrated how long the immunity will last, or whether eliminating some strains of cancer-causing virus will decrease the body’s natural immunity to other strains.

Morning Sickness? A Baby Girl May Be on the Way

Here's one old wives' tale that's probably true: If you have morning sickness, you more likely pregnant with a girl than a boy. Anahad O'Connor wrote about the research recently in The New York Times.

Postpartum Depression = Less Postpartum Weight Loss

As if women with postpartum depression didn't have enough to worry about, a study in the current issue of the medical journal Obesity suggests that postpartum depression makes it more likely that a woman won't lose her leftover pregnancy weight. From a summary of the article:

"The authors speculate that the decline in serotonin that accompanies postnatal decreases in estrogen and progesterone may cause sufferers to consume more carbohydrate-rich foods to regulate serotonin and alleviate depression. The higher cortisol levels in postpartum depression may also increase appetite and visceral fat accumulation in these women."

Measuring a Woman's Fertility

A test for a chemical called anti-mullerian hormone, aka AMH, may provide a snapshot of fertility in women who worry about their biological clocks. Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, Heather Won Tesoriero describes how doctors can order this blood test, which is widely available in Europe, and use the results to predict how many eggs a woman has ready to roll. One of the doctors interviewed calls AMH an "excellent predictor" of fertility. The FDA isn't on-board yet with the AMH test, but doctors are free to use it.
Here's an article on AMH from the journal Reproduction. And Eliza McCarthy wrote about this a few years ago at Slate.

A vaccine against cervical cancer

Cervical cancer may be a vaccine-preventable disease, as detailed in today's Newsday and AP. Merck has released the results of a study involving more than 10,000 women, which suggest that their vaccine, Gardasil, provides protection against the two strains of HPV virus responsible for 70% of all cervical cancer cases.

Fewer family physicians deliver babies

This report, presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Family Physicians, details the decline in the number of family practitioners who deliver babies. An increasing number of gynecologists are also deciding against obstetrics. (Did these people choose to become OB/GYNs because they find it rewarding to do Pap smears? I don't think so.) I wonder: Who'll deliver our grandchildren? That also happens to be the title of a commentary by Alastair MacLennan, MD; Karin B. Nelson, MD; Gary Hankins, MD; and Michael Speer, MD in the current issue of JAMA, which reviews the current status of cerebral palsy litigation. As they point out, 76% of American obstetricians have been hit with a practice-related legal action, usually involving cerebral palsy.