The Sixth Conference of African Union Ministers of Health culminated in continued high-level commitment to women’s and children’s health. Held under the theme “the impact of non-communicable diseases and neglected tropical illnesses on Africa’s socio-economic development,” the conference resulted in the approval of a second maternal, newborn, and child health status report, as requested by AU Heads of State and Government in Kampala in 2010.
Tag: child health
Sixth Conference of AU Ministers of Health
APRIL 2013 – The Sixth Conference of African Union Ministers of Health culminated in continued high-level commitment to women’s and children’s health. Held under the theme “the impact of non-communicable diseases and neglected tropical illnesses on Africa’s socio-economic development,” the conference resulted in the approval of a second maternal, newborn, and child health status report, as requested by AU Heads of State and Government in Kampala in 2010.
Long Quest for Pregnancy Ups Neuro Risk for Child
The more years spent trying to achieve pregnancy, the greater the risk of conceiving a child with neurological dysfunction,researchers found.
The time to pregnancy — used as a proxy for the severity of subfertility — was significantly longer for children who had minor neurological dysfunction compared with those with intact neurological function (median 4.1 versus 2.8 years, P=0.014), according to Mijna Hadders-Algra, MD, PhD, of the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, and colleagues.
The difference remained significant after adjustment for gestational age, parental age, and parental education (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.61) and largely reflected deficits in posture and muscle tone, the researchers reported online in the Fetal & Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease in Childhood.
“This implies that factors associated with subfertility may play a role in the genesis of neurodevelopmental problems,” they wrote. “Further exploration of the associations between subfertility and health outcome in offspring is necessary for the correct counseling of subfertile couples.” Read full article.
Childhood Obesity Could be Related to Growing Problems with Infertility
A dramatic increase in childhood obesity in recent decades may have impacts that go beyond the usual health concerns – it could be disrupting the timing of puberty and ultimately lead to a diminished ability to reproduce, especially in females.
A body of research suggests that obesity could be related to growing problems with infertility, scientists said in a recent review, in addition to a host of other physical and psycho-social concerns. The analysis was published in Frontiers in Endocrinology.
Human bodies may be scrambling to adjust to a problem that is fairly new. For thousands of years of evolution, poor nutrition or starvation were a greater concern, rather than an overabundance of food.
“The issue of so many humans being obese is very recent in evolutionary terms, and since nutritional status is important to reproduction, metabolic syndromes caused by obesity may profoundly affect reproductive capacity,” said Patrick Chappell, an assistant professor of veterinary medicine at Oregon State University and an author of the recent report.
“Either extreme of the spectrum, anorexia or obesity, can be associated with reproduction problems,” he said.
Researchers are still learning more about the overall impact of obesity on the beginning of puberty and effects on the liver, pancreas and other endocrine glands, Chappell said. While humans show natural variations in pubertal progression, the signals that control this timing are unclear.
STC Teen Pregnancy report
26 JUNE 2012 | LONDON – A new report from Save the Children UK – Every Woman’s Right: How Family Planning Saves Lives – highlights the fact that girls under 15 are five times more likely to die in pregnancy than women in their 20s. Babies born to younger mums are also at far greater risk and around one million babies born to adolescent girls die every year – babies are 60% more likely to die if their mother is under 18.
Read the full report Listen to the BBC Today programme’s Sarah Montague talking to pregnant teenagers at one STC clinic in Liberia
Could Fertility Drugs Make Kids Shorter?
SATURDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) — For those who need help getting pregnant, the thought of having a child who’s a little shorter than other kids probably won’t be much of a worry. But the question of whether infertility treatment causes unanticipated consequences remains fertile ground for researchers.
In a study scheduled for presentation Saturday at the Endocrine Society annual meeting in Houston, researchers found full-term children conceived with fertility drugs were about one inch shorter than their peers.
The researchers wanted to find out whether there was a difference in height among children whose mothers used only ovarian stimulation by fertility drugs such as Clomid (clomiphene) without in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Children conceived with the help of ovarian stimulation alone account for about 5 percent of all births in the developed world, according to the researchers.
Previous studies have suggested that children conceived by IVF may be taller than naturally conceived kids. The researchers wanted to know if something in the process of IVF, which includes fertilization and culture of embryos in a laboratory dish, could affect stature. So they studied children conceived without IVF, but with the assistance of fertility drugs that cause ovulation.
New WHO statistics report includes good news for women’s and children’s health
16 MAY 2012 | GENEVA – The World Health Statistics 2012 report puts the spotlight on the growing problem of the noncommunicable diseases burden, but also highlights progress in women’s and children’s health.
International Day of the Midwife 2012
Partners for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health raised their voices in support of the crucial work of skilled birth attendants in honour of International Day of the Midwife 2012.
GAVI: Ghana rolls out vaccines against two top killers of children
26 APRIL 2012 | ACCRA – Ghana has become the first African country to introduce pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines at the same time
Infertility Linked to Childhood Leukemia
Children born to mothers who had trouble getting pregnant for more than a year or who were given fertility drugs to stimulate their ovaries may be more likely to develop leukaemia, new research suggests.