[Epidemiological situation regarding SARS-CoV-2 in the Havlíčkův Brod region from April 2020 to September 2022].

Objective: In early March 2020, the first cases of the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 were confirmed in the Czech Republic. From April 2020 to the end of September 2022, more than 80,000 samples were examined in the microbiology laboratory of the Havlíčkův Brod Hospital. The article summarizes data obtained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neonatal Jaundice: A Study of the Incidence in Children of Rh (D) Negative and 0 Rh (D) Positive Mothers.

Despite advances in neonatal care, neonatal jaundice remains a common problem in maternity wards. The present retrospective epidemiological study collected data on a sample of 710 newborns and compared the incidence of neonatal jaundice in infants born to Rh (D) negative and 0 Rh (D) positive mothers. The primary aim was to determine whether the higher incidence of maternal alloimmunisation in newborns was causally related to a potentially higher incidence of neonatal jaundice in newborns of 0 Rh (D) positive mothers.

The Development and Neurophysiological Assessment of Newborn Auditory Cognition: A Review of Findings and Their Application.

This review article introduces the basic principles of infants' neurophysiology, while summarizing the core knowledge of the anatomical structure of the auditory pathway, and presents previous findings on newborns' neural speech processing and suggests their possible applications for clinical practice. In order to tap into the functioning of the auditory pathway in newborns, recent approaches have employed electrophysiological techniques that measure electrical activity of the brain. The neural processing of an incoming auditory stimulus is objectively reflected by means of auditory event-related potentials.

Newborns' neural processing of native vowels reveals directional asymmetries.

Prenatal learning of speech rhythm and melody is well documented. Much less is known about the earliest acquisition of segmental speech categories. We tested whether newborn infants perceive native vowels, but not nonspeech sounds, through some existing (proto-)categories, and whether they do so more robustly for some vowels than for others.

Neural Processing of Spectral and Durational Changes in Speech and Non-speech Stimuli: An MMN Study With Czech Adults.

Neural discrimination of auditory contrasts is usually studied via the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs). In the processing of speech contrasts, the magnitude of MMN is determined by both the acoustic as well as the phonological distance between stimuli. Also, the MMN can be modulated by the order in which the stimuli are presented, thus indexing perceptual asymmetries in speech sound processing.

The influence of mode of anaesthesia for caesarean delivery on neonatal Apgar scores in the Czech Republic and Slovakia: secondary analysis of the results of an international survey in 2015.

Aims: The purpose of this international survey was to describe the impact of current practices and techniques of caesarean section on the neonatal Apgar score in the Czech Republic (CZE) and Slovakia (SVK).

Methods: All Czech and Slovak departments that provide obstetric anaesthesia were invited to participate in a one-month (November 2015) prospective study that monitored in details all peripartum anaesthetic practices, delivered by anaesthesiologists. Participating centers recorded all data on-line in the CLADE-IS database (Masaryk University, CZE).