[What scientific publications should be read?].

Students in the biomedical fields, and even those at the graduate level, often tend to accept more readily the opinions of authority than scientific knowledge itself. Books and papers sometimes confuse hypotheses with evidence. Similarly, the great profusion of scientific publications makes it necessary to sift the sound from the fatuous, the important from the trivial, the useful from the dangerous.

Early postnatal growth evaluation in full-term, preterm and small-for-dates infants.

Postnatal growth patterns of weight, length/height and head circumference in full-term (FTI), preterm (PTI) and small-for-dates (SFDI) infants, are described by using distance and velocity data together with the concept of growth per unit of body weight. The study was performed in 112 healthy Caucasian infants, of a similar socioeconomic status, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Median growth velocity (MGV) and median growth velocity per unit (MGVU) of body size are defined.

Congenital malformations in diabetic offspring.

A retrospective study of 215 deliveries in diabetic mothers at Hospital de Clínicas (Montevideo, Uruguay) has been performed. Presence of congenital malformations (CM) was considered in relation to age of the mothers, class of maternal diabetes, maternal angiopathy, treatment and metabolic control. The prevalence of CM in the series was 9.

Passage of mannitol from mother to amniotic fluid and fetus.

Ten pregnant women and three pregnant sheep received mannitol intravenously. The results show that during late pregnancy this substance appears in amniotic fluid, and when the fetus is alive, its concentration increases with time, reaching values which are higher than those simultaneously obtained in maternal plasma. The experiments performed in sheep show that in fetal urine the concentration of mannitol reached values 10 to 20 times higher than those found in fetal plasma.

Transference of para-amino-hippurate from the mother to the amniotic fluid.

There are few studies in which substances mainly cleared by the kidney are injected to the mother and the time course of their concentrations in amniotic fluid is analyzed. This type of studies may contribute to the knowledge of the transference of substances through the mother-fetus-amniotic fluid complex. Thirteen pregnant women were studied.