Outcomes of women presenting in active versus latent phase of spontaneous labor.

Objective: To evaluate outcome differences between women presenting in latent and active labor.

Methods: We evaluated all low-risk women with term, singleton, vertex gestations who presented in active phase or latent phase labor at MetroHealth Medical Center from January 1993 to June 2001. Baseline characteristics were compared.

Low maternal weight, failure to thrive in pregnancy, and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to correlate low maternal pregravid weight, delivery weight, and poor gestational weight gain with perinatal outcomes.

Study Design: Maternal and perinatal data from January 1997 to June 2001 were obtained from a perinatal database at MetroHealth Medical Center. Low maternal weight (LMW) was defined as pregravid or delivery weight <100 pounds or body mass index (BMI) < or =19.

Serine metabolism in human pregnancy.

Serine plays an important role in intermediary metabolism as a source of one carbon pool for nucleotide biosynthesis, as a precursor for glycine and glucose, and as a contributor to cysteine biosynthesis. A unique serine-glycine cycling between the liver and the placenta has been demonstrated in the sheep fetus. We hypothesized that, because of serine's role in growth and development, significant changes in serine metabolism will occur in pregnancy with advancing gestation.

Fetal cyclic motor activity in diabetic pregnancies: sensitivity to maternal blood glucose.

Spontaneous fetal movement in the last third of human gestation is dominated by irregular oscillations on a scale of minutes (cyclic motility, CM). The core properties of these oscillations are stable during the third trimester of gestation in normal fetuses, but disrupted by poorly controlled maternal diabetes. Here we investigated whether fetal CM is linked to short-term instabilities in maternal glucose metabolism.

Prevalence of maternal obesity in an urban center.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the changing prevalence of maternal obesity in an urban center.

Study Design: The prevalence of obesity in 31,542 pregnancies from January 1986 to December 1996 (group 1) was compared with the prevalence of obesity in 15,600 pregnancies between January 1997 and June 2001 (group 2). Maternal weight was divided into two groups according to measurements performed at delivery (200 pounds).