Higher Rates Of Prematurity Research Articles

Family planning: Its health rationale

The achievement of small, well-spaced families for all socioeconomic groups should result in better health for mothers and their families. Increasing family size, particularly with extremely brief nonpregnant intervals in mothers at high risk socially, is associated with: (1) increased maternal, fetal, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality rates; (2) higher prematurity rates; (3) less parental care and more limited educational aspiration for children; (4) greater likelihood of child abuse; (5) increasing incidence of infectious diseases in parents and children; (6) poorer growth—in both height and weight—among preschool- and school-children; (7) lower Intelligence Quotient scores among children; (8) increased prevalence of selected diseases among parents. Under current conditions, a small, well-spaced family appears to offer promise of improved health status for high-risk parents and their children. This sum of our best medical knowledge to date is discussed in the light of its implications for policy development and program implementation.

The natural history of asymptomatic bacteriuria during pregnancy: The effect of tetracycline on the clinical course and the outcome of pregnancy

In this study of bacteriuria in pregnancy, the course of 133 tetracycline-treated and 148 placebo-treated bacteriuric patients was compared with the course of 279 matched nonbacteriuric pregnant control subjects, of whom 147 received tetracycline and 132 received placebos. Tetracycline-treated bacteriuric patients whose bacteriuria either did not clear with tetracycline or whose bacteriuria recurred prior to delivery and placebo-treated bacteriuric patients who developed symptomatic pyelonephritis had higher rates of prematurity than did other bacteriuric patients. If the bacteriuria was resistant to the first course of therapy, it was likely to be resistant to subsequent courses of therapy. Bacteriuric patients whose bacteriuria cleared were 8 times more likely to have a recurrence prior to delivery than were the nonbacteriuric patients who served as controls. Sixteen per cent of the bacteriuric patients who did not receive successful antimicrobial therapy developed symptomatic pyelonephritis. Nonbacteriuric patients who took 6 weeks of tetracycline had a significant reduction in the rate of premature delivery.