Associations between prenatal exposure to second hand smoke and infant self-regulation in a New York city longitudinal prospective birth cohort.

Background: Prenatal exposure to active or passive maternal smoking -also referred to as second hand smoke (SHS) exposure - are associated with externalizing behaviors, hyperactivity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, problems which derive in part from altered self-regulation.

Objectives: Determine the influence of prenatal SHS on infant self-regulation using direct measures of infant behavior in 99 mothers from the Fair Start birth cohort followed at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health.

Methods: Self-regulation was operationalized with self-contingency, the likelihood of maintaining/changing behavior from second-to-second, measured via split-screen video recordings of mothers playing with their 4-month infants.

Maternal serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels and successful labor induction.

Objective: To evaluate the maternal serum dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) sulfate level as a factor associated with the outcome of labor induction.

Methods: Venous blood was collected from 161 women at the initiation of labor induction. Pregnancies complicated by maternal corticosteroid use, antepartum chorioamnionitis, or cesarean delivery for indications other than arrest disorders were excluded from analysis.

Maternal serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels and the efficiency of labor in young nulliparas.

Objective: To evaluate the maternal serum dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) sulfate level as a factor influencing labor "efficiency" at term.

Methods: On admission to the labor and delivery unit, blood was collected from 55 term nulliparous women up to 25 years of age in active labor. Following delivery, umbilical venous cord blood was also collected.

Central diabetes insipidus: a complication of ventriculoperitoneal shunt malfunction during pregnancy.

During pregnancy ventriculoperitoneal shunts have reported complication rates of 30% to 60%. In this case a functionally occluded shunt resulted in prolonged increased intracranial pressure, pituitary stalk damage, and permanent central diabetes insipidus. This complication of ventriculoperitoneal shunt occlusion during pregnancy has not been previously reported.

Effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on the hippocampal neurochemistry of albino rats at 90 days of postnatal age.

Objective: Our purpose was to test the hypothesis that prenatal ethanol exposure alters the hippocampal muscarinic cholinergic neurochemistry of albino rats.

Study Design: Ethanol was administered in a liquid diet to pregnant albino Sprague-Dawley rats. Liquid diet control animals received the same diet in which ethanol was replaced by an isocaloric amount of maltose-dextrin.