Tafoxiparin, a novel drug candidate for cervical ripening and labor augmentation: results from 2 randomized, placebo-controlled studies.

Background: Slow progression of labor is a common obstetrical problem with multiple associated complications. Tafoxiparin is a depolymerized form of heparin with a molecular structure that eliminates the anticoagulant effects of heparin. We report on 2 phase II clinical studies of tafoxiparin in primiparas.

Higher alcohol consumption in early pregnancy or low-to-moderate drinking during pregnancy may affect children's behaviour and development at one year and six months.

Aim: It is unclear whether low-to-moderate alcohol consumption during pregnancy affects child development. This study examined the effects that a mother's self-reported alcohol consumption had on her pregnancy and her child's birth, behaviour and development.

Methods: We asked 291 Swedish women to report their alcohol consumption before and during pregnancy using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT); provide data on their pregnancy, labour and neonatal period; and complete a child behaviour and development questionnaire when their child was one year and six months of age.

Self-reported exposure to severe events on the labour ward among Swedish midwives and obstetricians: A cross-sectional retrospective study.

Background: The process of delivery entails potentially traumatic events in which the mother or child becomes injured or dies. Midwives and obstetricians are sometimes responsible for these events and can be negatively affected by them as well as by the resulting investigation or complaints procedure (clinical negligence).

Objective: To assess the self-reported exposure rate of severe events among midwives and obstetricians on the delivery ward and the cumulative risk by professional years and subsequent investigations and complaints.

Signatures of post-zygotic structural genetic aberrations in the cells of histologically normal breast tissue that can predispose to sporadic breast cancer.

Sporadic breast cancer (SBC) is a common disease without robust means of early risk prediction in the population. We studied 282 females with SBC, focusing on copy number aberrations in cancer-free breast tissue (uninvolved margin, UM) outside the primary tumor (PT). In total, 1162 UMs (1-14 per breast) were studied.

Alcohol consumption among pregnant women in a Swedish sample and its effects on the newborn outcomes.

Background: Little is known about the effects of low levels of maternal alcohol intake on the neuropsychological development of the child. This study is part of an ongoing investigation on maternal drinking and presents data on demographic variables, maternal alcohol use, and birth outcomes from that study.

Methods: The sample comprised 2,264 women from a Swedish antenatal clinic.

The expression of syndecan-1, syndecan-4 and decorin in healthy human breast tissue during the menstrual cycle.

Background: In order to unravel the interactions between the epithelium and the extra cellular matrix (ECM) in breast tissue progressing to cancer, it is necessary to understand the relevant interactions in healthy tissue under normal physiologic settings. Proteoglycans in the ECM play an important role in the signaling between the different tissue compartments. The proteoglycan decorin is abundant in the breast stroma.

Effects of pre- and postmenopausal use of exogenous hormones on receptor content in normal human breast tissue: a randomized study.

Objective: To examine the effects of exposure to endogenous and exogenous hormones on estrogen receptor-alpha (ERalpha) and progesterone receptor (PR) levels in normal human breast tissue.

Methods: In a randomized study of women scheduled for mammary reduction plasty (n = 81), ERalpha and PR content in breast parenchyma was analyzed in premenopausal (n = 49) and postmenopausal (n = 16) women. Premenopausal women were randomized to surgery in the follicular or luteal phase of the menstrual cycle or after oral contraceptive treatment for 2 months.

[Incontinentia pigmenti. A rare disease with many symptoms].

Incontinentia pigmenti, also known as Bloch-Sulzberger syndrome, is a rare multi-systemic disorder. The disease is characterised by abnormalities in ectodermal tissues including the skin, eyes, central nervous system and dentition. It is inherited as an X-linked dominant trait and is usually fatal for male fetuses.