Caring for Our Human Nature.

Unlabelled: The care for creation is an important call for all. Our human bodies form part of this created reality and should be treated with dignity and respect. Pope Benedict XVI underlined the ecology of man.

Why the Church Says "Yes" to Life and "No" to IVF.

This article presents the principal Church teachings regarding in vitro fertilization (IVF). Since the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first "test-tube" baby in 1978, around eight million IVF babies have been born. The Magisterium has pronounced her main teachings on IVF in (1987), (1995), and (2008).

Ministers of Life: A Call to Mission for Healthcare Workers.

In its new charter, the Vatican calls on healthcare workers to be ministers of life. This is a challenging task and a most noble mission. The mission field itself is the vast, complex and mysterious field of suffering (Pope John Paul II).

The Pediatrician as Prophet.

Unlabelled: In the gospels, Jesus got angry with his disciples because they were hindering the children from coming to him. When the disciples tried to turn them away, Jesus said "Let the children come to me" (Matt 19:14). Our Lord spoke out on behalf of the little ones at a time when they were generally despised and ignored by society.

Decision-making around resuscitation of extremely preterm infants in the Philippines: A consensus guideline.

While the vast majority of preterm births globally occur in low- and middle-income countries, existing published guidelines relating to the decision-making and resuscitation of extremely preterm infants (EPIs) largely focus on high-income countries. In 2018-2019, a working group of the Philippine Society of Newborn Medicine aimed to develop the first national guideline relating to the care of EPIs. The working group reviewed data on the outcomes of EPIs in the Philippines, surveyed paediatricians and neonatologists in the Philippines about current practice and held a consensus workshop.

Decision making in neonatal end-of-life scenarios in low-income settings.

Unlabelled: The challenge of decision making in end-of-life scenarios is exacerbated when the patient is a newborn and in a low-income setting. The principle of proportionate care is a helpful guide but needs to be applied. The complex interplay of benefit, burden, and cost of various treatments all need to be considered.

Justice and health care: When "ordinary" is extraordinary.

In some Asian countries, the poor are often denied access to health care. In the Philippines, we have thousands of Catholic doctors, Catholic nurses, even Catholic administrators, but not a Catholic, understood as "universal," healthcare system available to all. This is a scandal and places heavy emotional and financial burdens on many families who need to pay the healthcare costs of sick loved ones.

Boundary singularities produced by the motion of soap films.

Recent work has shown that a Möbius strip soap film rendered unstable by deforming its frame changes topology to that of a disk through a "neck-pinching" boundary singularity. This behavior is unlike that of the catenoid, which transitions to two disks through a bulk singularity. It is not yet understood whether the type of singularity is generally a consequence of the surface topology, nor how this dependence could arise from an equation of motion for the surface.

Matrix metalloproteinases and their inhibitors in bone remodelling following distraction osteogenesis of the sheep mandible.

Aim: Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), together with their tissue inhibitors (TIMPs), are responsible for the controlled degradation of collagen and other matrix substrates in bone and other tissues. This study evaluated the expression of MMPs and TIMPs in bony remodelling in a bilateral sheep mandible model up to 12 months following lengthening by distraction osteogenesis.

Methodology: Sheep mandibles were harvested 3, 6, 9 or 12 months following lengthening by bilateral mandibular distraction (1 mm/day for 20 days).