CHICAGO (Reuters) - Genes in the mother and the fetus play a role in the risk of preterm labor, a leading cause of infant death and disability, U.S. government researchers said on Thursday. They said gene variants in the mother and fetus can make them susceptible to an inflammatory response to infections inside the uterus, raising the risk that a ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women benefit from light-intensity resistance exercise during pregnancy and this type of physical activity is not apt to alter the way they deliver their baby, study findings hint. Regular exercise during pregnancy offers overall health benefits, Dr. Ruben Barakat, at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in Spain, and colleagues note in the American Journal of Obstetrics and ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Monitoring high-risk pregnancies with ultrasound tests may help prevent some fetal and newborn deaths, a new research review finds. The review assessed a technology called Doppler ultrasound, which measures blood flow through the umbilical cord. Abnormal findings indicate that the fetus may be under stress. Doppler ultrasound, done in the third trimester, is an established way ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of women are dying every year during pregnancy and childbirth in the African state of Burkina Faso because discrimination stops them from accessing sexual health services, Amnesty International said Wednesday. "Women in Burkina Faso are trapped in a vicious cycle of discrimination which makes giving birth potentially lethal," Claudio Cordone, Amnesty's interim secretary general, said in ...