L-Arginine treatment for severe vascular fetal intrauterine growth restriction: a randomized double-bind controlled trial.

Background & Aims: Infants born with severe IUGR are exposed to higher neonatal mortality and morbidity rates, as compared with appropriate-for-gestational-age. They are exposed to a higher risk of developing chronic disease such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes in adulthood. L-Arginine is a precursor of nitric oxide (NO) and may play a role in placental vascular mediation or local vasodilatation.

Chronic villitis of unknown etiology.

The diagnosis of chronic villitis of unknown etiology (CVUE), characterized by focal areas of inflammation with mononuclear cells and areas of fibrinoid necrosis in chorionic villi, can only be set-up after exclusion of a latent maternal-fetal transmission of infectious agents by sophisticated techniques such as polymerase chain reaction. Significant associations of CVUE with maternal body mass index, multigravidity and ethnicity were reported. While a fetal origin of the inflammatory cells has been evoked, there are many more arguments drawn from histopathology and immunohistology for a maternal immune response against the foreign fetal allograft.

Use of mifepristone to ripen the cervix and induce labor in term pregnancies.

Objective: This study was undertaken to determine the efficacy of mifepristone for ripening the cervix and inducing labor in term pregnancies.

Study Design: In a double-blind placebo-controlled dose-finding study, 346 women received 50, 100, 200, 400, or 600 mg of mifepristone or placebo. The main endpoint for efficacy was the number of patients in whom labor occurred between 12 and 45 and 54 hours after treatment or who had a Bishop score 6 or greater.

Prenatal sonographic patterns in six cases of Wolf-Hirschhorn (4p-) syndrome.

This multicentric study presents 6 cases of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome (deletion of 4p) detected after a sonographic prenatal diagnosis of early intrauterine growth retardation with fetal abnormalities. Standard karyotyping on regular G-banding during pregnancy was normal in half of the cases. Fortunately, the associated sonographic signs of a typical face, cystic cerebral lesions, midline fusion defects and bilateral renal hypoplasia may help to refine specific indications for high-resolution banding and molecular analysis by in situ hybridization.

Obstetrical complications and subsequent schizophrenia in adolescent and young adult offsprings: is there a relationship?

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disease affecting around 1% of the population, the negative signs of which are correlated with inactivity of the prefrontal dorsolateral cortex, while an increased, more deeply localized, activity in the mesolimbic pathway may explain the positive signs. Several events occurring during pregnancy are likely to be involved in its genesis: hormonal supplementation by diethylstilbestrol, severe maternal denutrition, exposure to influenza virus, repeated psychological stress. From multicentric studies and meta-analyses in the psychiatric literature, the risk of schizophrenia appears to be multiplied by two if pregnancy is complicated, mainly by diabetes, Rhesus incompatibility, bleeding, preeclampsia, premature rupture of membranes and preterm birth.

Prenatal diagnosis of a 'minor' form of Brachmann-de Lange syndrome by three-dimensional sonography and three-dimensional computed tomography.

Brachmann-de Lange syndrome is a congenital disease characterized by severe mental retardation, pre- and postnatal symmetric growth delay, limb defects, visceral anomalies, hirsutism, and a typical face. The authors describe the prenatal sonographic pattern of Brachmann-de Lange syndrome suspected at 20 weeks of gestation, with severe intrauterine growth retardation, facial dysmorphism, cardiac abnormality, and micromelia without the typical defects of the upper limbs. Fetal karyotyping was normal.