Use of Electronic Medical Records to Estimate Changes in Pregnancy and Birth Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance: The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on fertility rates has been suggested in the lay press and anticipated based on documented decreases in fertility and pregnancy rates during previous major societal and economic shifts. Anticipatory planning for birth rates is important for health care systems and government agencies to accurately estimate size of economy and model working and/or aging populations.

Objective: To use projection modeling based on electronic health care records in a large US university medical center to estimate changes in pregnancy and birth rates prior to and after the COVID-19 pandemic societal lockdowns.

Exploring dissociation and oxytocin as pathways between trauma exposure and trauma-related hyperemesis gravidarum: a test-of-concept pilot.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with gastrointestinal and genitourinary comorbidities. These map onto the somatization disorder symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( American Psychiatric Association, 1994 ) and the dissociative (conversion) disorders symptoms in the International Classification of Diseases taxonomy ( World Health Organization, 2007 ). Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is one of these symptoms and a gastrointestinal comorbidity of PTSD occurring in pregnancy.

Relative analgesic potencies of levobupivacaine and ropivacaine for epidural analgesia in labor.

Background: The minimum local analgesic concentration has been defined as the median effective local analgesic concentration (EC50) in a 20-ml volume for epidural analgesia in the first stage of labor. The aim of this study was to assess the relative analgesic potencies of epidural levobupivacaine and ropivacaine by determination of their respective minimum local analgesic concentrations.

Methods: Parturients at 7 cm of cervical dilation or less who requested epidural analgesia were allocated to one of two groups in this double-blind, randomized, prospective study.

Effect of epidural epinephrine on the minimum local analgesic concentration of epidural bupivacaine in labor.

Background: The minimum local analgesic concentration (MLAC) has been defined as the median effective local analgesic concentration in a 20-ml volume for epidural analgesia in the first stage of labor. The aim of this study was to determine the local anesthetic-sparing efficacy of epidural epinephrine by its effect on the MLAC of bupivacaine.

Methods: In this double-blind, randomized, prospective study, 70 parturients who were at 7 cm or less cervical dilation and who requested epidural analgesia were allocated to one of two groups.