Antiracist symptom science: A call to action and path forward.

Nurse scientists recognize the experience of racism as a driving force behind health. However, symptom science, a pillar of nursing, has rarely considered contributions of racism. Our objective is to describe findings within symptom science research related to racial disparities and/or experiences of racism and to promote antiracist symptom science within nursing research.

Exposure to antenatal corticosteroids and infant cortisol regulation.

Administration of antenatal corticosteroids (AC) is the standard of care during pregnancy for women who are at risk of early delivery. Evidence indicates that AC improve survival and reduce morbidity for preterm infants. However, research suggests that infants whose mothers receive AC have an altered hypothalamic-pituitary-axis (HPA) response to stressors in early life.

Symptom Experience in Late Pregnancy.

Objective: To evaluate the frequency, severity, distress, and correlates of common and rare symptoms reported by nulliparous women during the last month of pregnancy.

Design: Secondary cross-sectional analysis of data obtained in a larger randomized clinical trial.

Setting: San Francisco Bay area.

Sleep disruption and duration in late pregnancy is associated with excess gestational weight gain among overweight and obese women.

Background: Poor sleep during pregnancy has been associated with poorer birth outcomes. High body mass index (BMI) is often associated with poor sleep, but little is known about the relationship between gestational weight gain and sleep in late pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships of both gestational weight gain and pre-pregnancy BMI to objective and subjective measures of sleep during late pregnancy.