ArticlesThe Ride From Saltadere, HaitiPosted in Preeclampsia Information on May 25, 2013 by Administrator
Nadine Brunk, a Certified Nurse-Midwife, started a program called Midwives for Haiti (MFH). We’ve been talking to Nadine about how we can extend our work in patient and community education to prenatal care settings like those found in Haiti. I feel like we have much to learn from Nadine, as one minute with her blog will show you. Recently, she shared this amazing story with us. The Danger of Ignorance: Improving Patient Education to Save WomenPosted in Health Information on December 05, 2012 by Administrator By Dr. Anne Wallis ~ Who remembers the first season ER episode "Love's Labours Lost"? The answer: pretty much anyone who ever watched ER! In the episode, a pregnant woman presents to the emergency room with a complaint of bladder problems, has a seizure and later dies. This was my first exposure to the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Eclampsia is, thankfully, rare, but it carries a high case fatality rate for the mother and/or the infant. Gestational hypertension and preeclampsia are far more common, affecting between 5% and 8% of all pregnancies in the US. Moreover, these conditions are on the rise and globally, these conditions are a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. How Can Nurses Help Preeclampsia Patients?Posted in Preeclampsia Information on September 30, 2012 by Administrator Preeclampsia Foundation volunteers in different parts of the country have been taking advantage of Perinatal Outreach Educator Networks to disseminate information about the Preeclampsia Foundation and advocate for more patient education. Vision Grant Researcher Reports Successful Methodology to Study Placental ProteinsPosted in Research on September 30, 2012 by Administrator Principal Investigator Nihar R. Nayak, DVM, PhD, Stanford University, recently reported successful progress in his efforts to better understand the role of certain placental proteins in the development of preeclampsia. His 2011 Vision Grant research project aimed to see how proteins act in the placenta during preeclampsia. In Nayak's multi-stage investigation, he first needed to develop a new method using a mouse model system to study the roles of specific proteins in placental function and disease, as well as testing novel therapeutic approaches to preeclampsia. In his model, protein expressions can be seen in all stages of pregnancy. Patient Centered Care Should Improve Preeclampsia OutcomesPosted in Preeclampsia Information on September 30, 2012 by Administrator By Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway ~ October is Patient Centric Care Month, a term you will likely see more of as our healthcare system moves further into the 21st century. What does 21st century healthcare look like? It means that all of your records will be computerized and not on paper. It means that you will receive your "chart" on a flash drive so that when if you leave your physician's office and go to a hospital, your health records remain with you. Gone will be the days when your labs will have to be repeated because no one can locate your prenatal chart. Repeating labs is not only annoying, it's costly. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care ActPosted in Heard on the Hill on July 02, 2012 by Administrator Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the "health reform law." This means that implementation of this landmark legislation can continue to move forward. However, the law continues to be the subject of debate through this year's presidential and congressional election cycle, and depending on the election results could be altered by Congress and the White House in the future. As it currently stands, the law directly benefits childbearing women and newborns by:
Food and Drug Safety and Innovation Act May Have Impact on Preeclampsia BiomarkersPosted in Heard on the Hill on June 05, 2012 by Administrator On May 24, 2012, the U.S. Senate passed the Food and Drug Safety and Innovation Act, which reauthorizes funding for activities related to the drug and device approval process at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The legislation also includes requirements and provisions for faster review of new and innovative therapies in order to allow patients to be able to access these therapies more quickly. The next step is for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the bill, and then a final bill will go to the President for signature. Reaching Their Heads AND Their HeartsPosted in Letter from the Executive Director on June 05, 2012 by Administrator That was my goal with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I was given to present one of three President's Program lectures at the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists' Annual Clinical Meeting. New preeclampsia reference book to be published for patientsPosted in Preeclampsia Information on June 05, 2012 by Administrator Professors Chris Redman and Isabel Walker, co-authors of Pre-eclampsia: The Facts (Oxford University Press 1992) and co-founders of Action on Pre-eclampsia (APEC) in the UK, are seeking input from members of the Preeclampsia Foundation for their latest book, The Pre-eclampsia Survival Guide. Celebrating Mothers at the ExtremesPosted in Letter from the Executive Director on April 30, 2012 by Eleni
May and Mother's Day are so intertwined that it's hard to think about one without the other, especially here at the Preeclampsia Foundation, where we've built a nationwide campaign at www.promisewalk.org/campaign to get the word out about preeclampsia - the "thing" that for many survivors turned our entrance into motherhood into a nightmare.
Your Most Important Health Advocate by Jill SiegelPosted in Raising Awareness and Fundraising on March 06, 2012 by Administrator The October 2011 issue of Expectations (featuring patient-centered care month) highlighted two powerful, silver-screen accounts of parents confronted with the unthinkable: a child's health crisis with no known cure leading doctors to tell them "there is nothing more we can do." Those simple words - and the prospect that there was no hope - prompted these every-day parents to take on the most important "projects" of their lives: saving the lives of their children. Is there a nutritional connection to preeclampsia? That idea seems plausible at first, as when the blood samples of women have been analyzed, some researchers have found altered levels of various vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, preeclamptic women have altered patterns of weight gain during pregnancy; and obese women are more likely to develop preeclampsia.
Such considerations may lead one to speculate that certain diets may prevent or reverse the disease, in which case the appropriate diet becomes a therapeutic intervention. However the best research to date suggests this just isn't so.
Perinatal Outreach Educator Networks: A Strategy for Provider EducationPosted in Volunteer Happenings on February 04, 2012 by Administrator Perinatal Outreach Educator Networks (POENs) are generally funded by individual states to provide perinatal (the care offered to a mother and child just before and just after birth) medical education to health care providers in the region, enhancing the quality of care for mothers and infants and reducing morbidity and mortality. Specialists share their experience and knowledge with other physicians and community hospitals across regions by offering or facilitating programs such as physician and nurse consultation services, continuing education for health care professionals, emergency medical transport for referring hospitals within the region, consultation and technical assistance on emerging perinatal issues, and sometimes even lending libraries. Currently there's no way to know for certain whether preeclampsia will develop during any given pregnancy. This leaves pregnant women and their care providers with little choice but to wait for symptoms to appear... dangerous symptoms that mean the disease has progressed to the point where mother and baby are critically ill and will need intensive monitoring and carefully timed delivery to protect their health and lives. The only screening method to date is to measure those symptoms when they appear. Early detection wouldn't be a treatment. But what if a screening test could let us know, weeks or even months in advance, that we'd probably be getting ill? Knowing might change the way we seek care - possibly choosing specialist care providers with the education and experience to manage medically complicated pregnancies. Women in parts of the world (like
Research Roundup: November 2010Posted in Research on November 18, 2010 by Administrator Several major disorders that occur during pregnancy result from failure of the placenta to implant correctly into the uterus or womb. During early pregnancy cells from the placenta, known as trophoblast cells, invade into the uterus and tap into the mother’s blood supply to sustain the growing baby. Failure of this process can lead to insufficient supply of blood to the placenta resulting in preeclampsia, as well as low birth weight babies, stillbirth or recurrent miscarriage. The invading placental trophoblast cells intermingle with maternal immune cells in the uterine lining. Trophoblast express not only maternal but also paternal genes and these will be different or “foreign” to the mother. Maternal immune cells can recognize these “foreign” fetal molecules and are thought to regulate the implantation process, allowing sufficient but not excessive invasion of the placenta. In the preeclamptic pregnancy this interactive process goes wrong and there is ... Des Moines Conference Focuses on Team Approach to PreeclampsiaPosted in Volunteer Happenings on October 31, 2010 by Administrator On October 18, the Iowa Section of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses hosted Preeclampsia: A Team Approach to help provide healthcare providers with a greater understanding of the disease. More than 70 participants enjoyed the viewing of the 2009 Chairman's Hope Award for Outstanding Service video highlighting John and Brenda Warner, opening comments by Sue Gehlsen , Executive Director of Women's Services at Iowa Health, presentations by Joseph Hwang, MD, FACOG and George Lederhaas, MD on hypertension in pregnancy and ... Research Roundup: October 2010Posted in Research on September 30, 2010 by Administrator Last month, a team from the University of Alberta reported in the journal Hypertension on a method to determine that a woman is at high risk of developing preeclampsia. While this method may or may not be developed into a screening test in the future, it confirmed that changes in the metabolism and the vasculature of women who go on to develop preeclampsia can be detected at 15 weeks gestation. Research Roundup: August 2010Posted in Research on August 01, 2010 by Administrator Vitamin D and Microchimerisms: Could the sun really have something to do with preeclampsia? Advances in Research: Screening TestPosted in Research on May 04, 2010 by Administrator
Blood pressure cuffs, urine dipsticks, and the scale: for decades, these simple tools have aided health care providers in the detection of preeclampsia. As a woman's pregnancy progresses, her prenatal visits come closer together, so that her weight gain, urine, and blood pressure readings can be monitored for signs of the disorder. However, this system isn't perfect. While preeclampsia most frequently occurs at term, it can sometimes strike much earlier. The disorder can sometimes progress rapidly between appointments, or the warning signs can be too subtle to trigger alarm. But soon, clinicians may have another method for detecting preeclampsia: a reliable screening test that can spot changes in the bloodstream relatively early in pregnancy, warning healthcare providers when preeclampsia may occur before term. In the past eight years, a substantial amount ... Matrix Biology Lab Conducting Cutting-Edge ResearchPosted in Health Information on October 04, 2008 by Administrator Say “matrix” and visions of a kick-boxing, black-clad Keanu Reeves may come to mind. No, this is not a movie review. Every day, a small army of Harvard Medical School researchers reports to The Life Sciences Building in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area. It’s new, ultra high-tech. It towers over its neighboring hospitals and research facilities and, with its clean lines, giant glass panels and sweeping marble stairway, would be a set designer’s dream for another sequel to “The Matrix”. The men and women who spend so much of their lives in this futuristic workplace are pulmonologists, oncologists, nephrologists, neurologists; they are natives of France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, India, China, Japan, Turkey, and the U.S. They study and work under the leadership of Dr. Raghu Kalluri, Chief of the Division of Matrix Biology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Composed of proteins and found throughout the body, the matrix serves as a platform for ... |
