View clinical trials related to Pregnancy.
Filter by:Peri-partum cardiomyopathy is a heart muscle weakness that occurs during or following pregnancy. Research suggests that many initial heart injuries including viruses, pregnancy and other unknown causes, can lead to a process of inflammation of the heart muscle which can weaken the heart and cause cardiomyopathy. Why this process occurs in women during pregnancy is not well understood and if it differs from those women who develop cardiomyopathy from a virus is unknown. This study has been proposed to look at genetic information (DNA) as well as the immune system (the body's response to fight off infections and/or viruses) to find possible causes for the heart muscle damage that occurs in peripartum cardiomyopathy.
The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing among pregnant women in the United States. More than one-third of women of reproductive age in the US are overweight or obese, and two thirds of women gain more weight in pregnancy than is recommended by the Institute of Medicine guidelines. Maternal obesity during pregnancy increases the risk of complications to both mother and child. Minority women (Blacks and Hispanics) have higher rates of overweight and obesity when they become pregnant, experience higher rates of excessive weight gain during pregnancy, and experience higher rates of maternal and neonatal complications after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities than Caucasian women. Epidemiologic studies indicate that lifestyle modification programs based on diet and exercise are promising approaches in controlling weight gain as well as in preventing type 2 diabetes in populations at risk. We hypothesize that overweight/obese minority women (Blacks and Hispanics) assigned to a culturally-grounded lifestyle intervention program based on diet and moderate exercise will result in higher compliance with Institute of Medicine guidelines for weight gain than women receiving standard care. Such lifestyle modifications should reduce risk of maternal and neonatal complications. We propose 1) to determine whether a lifestyle intervention program, based on diet and moderate physical activity implemented shortly after first recognition of pregnancy, will result in higher compliance with Institute of Medicine guidelines for weight gain compared to women receiving standard care; 2) to determine the occurrence of carbohydrate intolerance and GDM at 24-28 weeks gestation (after the first 10-12 weeks of intervention) and at 6 weeks postpartum between women in the lifestyle intervention group and women receiving standard care; and 3) to explore the impact of the lifestyle intervention on the development of maternal and fetal complications during pregnancy. By limiting excessive weight gain, the lifestyle intervention program may prevent the burden of obesity-related complications during pregnancy and reduce risk of subsequently developing overt diabetes.
The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a brief culturally appropriate and theory-based parental communication intervention designed to improve parent-adolescent sexual communication and reduce adolescent sexual risk behavior.
The incidence of malaria, including the incidence in pregnant women, is declining in many African countries. Thus, there is a need to re-examine the efficacy and cost effectiveness of giving intermittent preventive treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine in pregnancy (SP-IPTp) on several occasions during pregnancy, an intervention that is threatened by increasing resistance to SP. Possible alternatives to SP-IPTp need to be explored. This applies especially to areas with highly seasonal malaria transmission where women are at risk for only a short period of the year. The goal of this project is to determine whether in pregnant women who sleep under a long lasting insecticide treated bed net, screening and treatment at each scheduled antenatal clinic visit is as effective in protecting them from anaemia, low birth weight and placental infection as SP-IPTp. Primigravidae and secundigravidae who present at antenatal clinics in study sites in four West African countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and The Gambia) will be randomised to one of two groups. All women will be given a long lasting insecticide treated bed net on first presentation at the antenatal clinic. Women in group 1 (reference group) will receive SP-IPTp according to the current WHO guidelines. Those in group 2 will be screened with a rapid diagnostic test at each scheduled antenatal clinic visit and treated if parasitaemic. Approximately 5000 women will be recruited, 2500 in each group. Women will be encouraged to deliver in hospital where maternal haemoglobin and birth weight will be recorded and a placental sample obtained. Those who deliver at home will be visited within a week of delivery and maternal haemoglobin and infant weight recorded. Mothers and infants will be seen again six weeks after delivery. Also at delivery peripheral maternal blood sample will be obtained for the diagnosis of malaria using RDT, microscopy and PCR. The primary end points of the trial will be birth weight and anaemia at 38 weeks (+/-2 weeks) of gestation. The study is powered to show non-inferiority of group 2 compared to group 1. The costs and cost effectiveness of each intervention will be evaluated. In the light of recent evidence suggesting that malaria infection during pregnancy, particularly in the last trimester may influence an infant's risk of malaria, we proposed to follow infants born to mothers recruited in the Navrongo site in Ghana who have received either IST or IPTp in pregnancy throughout the whole of their first year of life beyond the six weeks originally proposed. We have received approval for this from the ethic committees at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana Health Service and Navrongo Health Research Centre. The aim is to obtain information on the incidence of both symptomatic and asymptomatic malaria infections in these infants during follow up of the infants. The study will provide information to national malaria control programmes on whether there are alternative, safe and effective methods to the SP IPTp regimen for reducing the burden of malaria in pregnancy.
Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are now the treatment of choice for malaria in non-pregnant individuals living in areas with established chloroquine resistance; they have been shown to be both safe and highly efficacious. There is rapidly increasing experience with artemisinin derivatives in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters of pregnancy, with over 1,000 well documented cases with no reported serious adverse effects to mother or fetus (WHO Malaria Treatment Guidelines, 2006). Many countries in Latin America have abandoned the previous 1st line regimen of Quinine-Clindamycin for treatment of malaria in pregnancy, a complex and poorly tolerated regimen with low adherence, in favor of ACTs, despite limited safety and pharmacokinetic data on the use of these compounds in pregnant women. Lack of pharmacokinetic data may lead to underdosing of pregnant women, with subsequent reduced efficacy and increased potential for development of resistance. One ACT regimen, Artesunate-Mefloquine, has been developed as a fixed-dose combination (Farmanguinhos Artesunato + Mefloquina), as part of an international collaborative research effort led by Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), and manufactured by Farmanguinhos, laboratory of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Initial clinical trials suggest that it is very well tolerated and efficacious in both pregnant and non-pregnant individuals. The convenient dosing afforded by a fixed drug combination make this a very promising candidate for treatment of pregnant women with malaria. Preliminary pharmacokinetic data from mefloquine monotherapy and prophylaxis suggest that the peak concentration of mefloquine is lowered in pregnant women. Prior to wide-spread adoption of the Artesunate-Mefloquine combination, further studies on safety, efficacy, and dose optimization are imperative. We propose to compare the pharmacokinetics of the fixed combination of mefloquine-artesunate (MA) for treatment of P.falciparum in 28 pregnant women in the second and third trimesters to the pharmacokinetics of this regimen in 28 matched non-pregnant P.falciparum infected women. This will allow us to determine whether the standard adult dose is sufficient for pregnant women.
The purpose of this study is to collect urine samples and dating scan information from women who wish to become pregnant. Urine samples will be tested in the laboratory with the Clearblue Pregnancy Test and the results correlated with volunteer information.
Primary outcome: to evaluate the effect of elective induction of labor (IOL), at 39 weeks gestation, on cesarean delivery rates in nulliparous women compared to expectant management (EM). Secondary outcomes: to evaluate differences in the mean number of clinic visits/antepartum tests avoided with IOL, to compare the differences in utilization of inpatient resources (mean duration of inpatient stay, mean duration of labor), and to evaluate the effect of IOL on the risk of urinary/anal incontinence and sexual dysfunction as analyzed using previously validated measurements. We will evaluate differences in the rate of cervical change once active labor is diagnosed, and the time from completion of active labor, defined as complete dilation and complete effacement, to the delivery of fetus (definition of second stage of active labor). Furthermore, other secondary outcomes to be evaluated include comparisons between IOL and EM in regards to the occurence of chorioamnionitis, stillbirth, operative vaginal delivery, and meconium stained amniotic fluid. An evaluation of the predictive value of cervical length and Bishop score for vaginal delivery will also be examined.
The Cymbalta Pregnancy Registry is a U.S. based Registry designed to monitor women who are exposed to Cymbalta (duloxetine) during pregnancy. This is an observational, exposure-registration and follow-up registry.
The study is based on the premise that ultrasound is not commonly used in an ambulance. There are some departments that do deploy it into the field, but of those departments there is almost no data collected about its use. Currently Paramedics are not recognized by insurance companies as health care providers capable of performing ultrasound. If there were more data on the subject that may eventually change. We are hoping to prove that not only is ultrasound useful in an ambulance, but that paramedics are good at interpreting the results. We will save images, the paramedic's diagnosis and some basic information about the call. We will not save any protected health information (PHI) or any information linking the subject to the study. The data collected will be sent to a non-biased ultrasound reviewer to grade the images for the accuracy of diagnosis and the quality of the view obtained. This data will be used to formulate a report and statistics on paramedic's ability to perform ultrasound in the field.
The primary purpose of this population-based study is to quantify and understand the trends in pregnancy outcomes in defined low-resource geographic areas over time, in order to provide population-based data on stillbirths, neonatal and maternal mortality.