Pregnancy outcomes and health care use: effects of abuse
Article Abstract:
Pregnant women who experience physical abuse may use health care services more heavily and have poorer health than nonabused pregnant women. Researchers obtained questionnaires from 1,014 pregnant women that asked whether they had experienced past or present domestic abuse. Abused pregnant women were more likely to be admitted to hospitals with vague abdominal symptoms, to use prescription and other drugs, and to have poor health than nonabused women. Abused women experienced asthma at almost twice the rate (22.5%) of nonabused women (12%). Abused women also had higher rates of epilepsy. Doctors should be on the alert for signs of domestic abuse in their pregnant patients, and to provide them with support. Preventing domestic abuse among pregnant women may decrease health care costs.
Publication Name: American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0002-9378
Year: 1996
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Lack of a critical cardiac output and critical systemic oxygen delivery during low cardiac output in the third trimester in the pregnant sheep
Article Abstract:
The pregnant female may not respond to decreased availability of oxygen in the same way the nonpregnant female responds. The normal response to decreased blood flow or oxygen supply is to maintain tissue oxygen consumption by extracting oxygen more efficiently until a threshold point below which oxygen consumption falls rapidly. However, pregnant sheep show a steady decline in oxygen consumption when arterial blood flow from the heart is decreased whereas nonpregnant ewes displayed the normal threshold pattern. This could have implications for the care of critically ill pregnant women if pregnancy has the same effect in humans.
Publication Name: American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0002-9378
Year: 1996
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
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