Historical Primer on Obstetrics and Gynecology Health Inequities in America: A Narrative Review of Four Events.

Four historical events provide context for racial injustices and inequities in medicine in the United States today: the invention of race as a social construct, enslavement in the Americas, the legal doctrine of Partus sequitur ventrem, and the American eugenics movement. This narrative review demonstrates how these race-based systems resulted in stereotypes, myths, and biases against Black individuals that contribute to health inequities today. Education on the effect of slavery in current health care outcomes may prevent false explanations for inequities based on stereotypes and biases.

Opioid Utilization by Pregnant Women with Sickle Cell Disease and the Risk of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.

Background: Pregnant women with sickle cell disease (SCD) are at increased risk of maternal and fetal complications. There are limited data on the outcome of the treatment of VOCs with opioids in relation to neonatal complications during pregnancy.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of women with SCD from January 1999 to December 2008.

Acute ischemic injury of astrocytes is mediated by Na-K-Cl cotransport and not Ca2+ influx at a key point in white matter development.

Cerebral palsy is a common birth disorder that frequently involves ischemic-type injury to developing white matter (WM). Dead glial cells are a common feature of this injury and here we describe a novel form of acute ischemic cell death in developing WM astrocytes. Ischemia, modeled by the withdrawal of oxygen and glucose, evoked [Ca2+]i increases and cell death in astrocytes in post-natal day 10 (P10) rat optic nerve (RON).