Preconception health promotion: analysis of means and constraints.

Objectives: To assess means and constraints of preconception care implementation.

Methods: Three strategies were applied to promote preconception health: organisation of a campaign, production of guidelines, and implementation of a preconception pilot clinic. Three surveys investigated the knowledge and practices of women before and after the campaign, and one survey assessed the attitudes of gynaecologists.

[Sexual development of the child and the onset of gender identity].

In view of the numerous questions raised by the recently disclosed pedophilia, sexual abuses and prostitution of children, it appeared worthwhile to review the recent studies dealing with the child sexual development and the onset of the gender identity. These studies consist partly in retrospective analysis of pathological situations and partly in the analysis of normal development. It appears that the social and emotional surroundings of the child, provided that they were continuous and devoid of ambiguity, play a prominent role in this process.

Thermal behavior of the constant volume body plethysmograph.

The thermal behavior of the constant volume body plethysmograph under the thermal effect of the patient and the thermostatic bag is modeled by two relations: the first is between the temperature in the box and the heat flux generated by the patient and the bag, and the second is between the pressure in the box and the same flux. When the heat flux evolves as a step function, the temperature and the pressure are characterized by four time constants, the theoretical values of which are functions of the heat transfer coefficients by natural convection between the faces of the walls, and the air inside and outside the box. Only two of these four theoretical constants can be experimentally measured with reasonable precision.