Scope of Practice Barriers for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses: A State Task Force to Minimize Barriers.

Collegial relationships, administrative champions, and persistence are key components to breaking down barriers to advanced practice RN (APRN) practice. This article addresses how Iowa APRNs in a state-sanctioned task force identified barriers for practicing at the top of their licensure in a full practice authority state including defending the right to control the scope of nursing practice in court.

Replication of clinical associations with 17-hydroxyprogesterone in preterm newborns.

Nationally, newborn screening programs use 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) as the biomarker to detect the rare but potentially fatal inherited disease, congenital adrenal hyperplasia. However, this biomarker is highly variable, with a high false-positive rate of detection, particularly in neonates born preterm. Several studies have examined various clinical and genetic factors to explain the variability of 17-OHP in preterm infants.

Replication of a genome-wide association study of birth weight in preterm neonates.

Objective: To examine associations between rs9883204 in ADCY5 and rs900400 near LEKR1 and CCNL1 with birth weight in a preterm population. Both markers were associated with birth weight in a term population in a recent genome-wide association study of Freathy et al.

Study Design: A meta-analysis of mother and infant samples was performed for associations of rs900400 and rs9883204 with birth weight in 393 families from the US, 265 families from Argentina, and 735 mother-infant pairs from Denmark.

Cytochrome P450 (CYP2D6) genotype is associated with elevated systolic blood pressure in preterm infants after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit.

Objective: To determine genetic and clinical risk factors associated with elevated systolic blood pressure (ESBP) in preterm infants after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Study Design: A convenience cohort of infants born at <32 weeks gestational age was followed after NICU discharge. We retrospectively identified a subgroup of subjects with ESBP (systolic blood pressure [SBP] >90th percentile for term infants).

Possible roles of bilirubin and breast milk in protection against retinopathy of prematurity.

Aim: To explore the association of serum bilirubin level and breast milk feeding with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in preterm infants.

Methods: We conducted a case-control study to examine the independent and combined effects of serum bilirubin and breast milk feeding on ROP risk in infants <32 weeks gestation or with birth weight <1500 g. Cases (66 infants with ROP) were matched with controls (66 infants without ROP) based on factors known to affect ROP risk.