Reduction in preterm birth rate during the COVID-19 pandemic: Analysing causation.

: This is a mini commentary on Rusconi et al., pp.276–284 in this issue.

Association between first trimester platelet to lymphocyte ratio and stillbirth.

Background: Neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) have been investigated as inflammatory markers of malignancies, cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases. We explored the association between NLR, PRL, measured during pregnancy, and stillbirth (SB).

Methods: We conducted a retrospective case control study at a tertiary hospital center in New York City from May 2015 to July 2018.

A collaborative approach intended to reduce the duration of short term urinary catheters in adult patients at a tertiary care medical center also significantly reduced the duration of hospitalization.

Background: Urinary tract infections are the leading cause of nosocomial infections in the United States. The major contributing factor is the placement of indwelling urinary catheters.

Methods: Following a chart review of adult patients hospitalized at a tertiary care medical center who required the use of a short-term (≤ 2 weeks) indwelling urinary catheter, a collaborative effort was initiated by an Infectious Diseases physician to develop protocols focused on the clinical service involved for the expeditious removal of short-term indwelling urinary catheters.

Increasing incidence and changing epidemiology of babesiosis in the Hudson Valley region of New York State: 2009-2016.

Babesiosis is an emerging infection in parts of New York State. From 2009 through 2016, there was a significant increase in the incidence rate of babesiosis in the Hudson Valley region of New York State (P = 0.002), an inland geographic location in which babesiosis only first emerged in 2001.

Vertical transmission of Babesia microti, United States.

Babesiosis is usually acquired from a tick bite or through a blood transfusion. We report a case of babesiosis in an infant for whom vertical transmission was suggested by evidence of Babesia spp. antibodies in the heel-stick blood sample and confirmed by detection of Babesia spp.

Babesiosis in Lower Hudson Valley, New York, USA.

Although Lyme disease has been endemic to parts of the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, United States, for >2 decades, babesiosis has emerged there only since 2001. The number of Lower Hudson Valley residents in whom babesiosis was diagnosed increased 20-fold, from 6 to 119 cases per year during 2001-2008, compared with an ≈1.6-fold increase for the rest of New York.