Current Women's Health Reviews - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2008

In the 1980s, I was working on a health and nutrition program for the inhabitants of coffee plantations (fincas) in the highlands of the west coast of Guatemala. One night, around 8 p.m., a nurse in charge of one of these fincas called me with an emergency. When we entered the dwelling, in a unique room where the family would eat, cook and sleep, I saw a table placed in the centre of the room, with a boy lying on this table su Read More

Introduction: Evidence is mounting to suggest that maternal nutritional factors during pregnancy will have both short- and long-term consequences to the health of the child. Recent studies show a direct connection between gestational environment (nutrition, chemical exposure, stress, and exercise) and elevated risk of chronic disease in the adult offspring, many decades later. These studies strongly emphasize the importan Read More

Nicotine occurs in tobacco smoke. It is a habit forming substance and is prescribed by health professionals to assist smokers to quit smoking. It is rapidly absorbed from the lungs of smokers. It crosses the placenta and accumulates in the developing fetus. Nicotine induces formation of oxygen radicals and at the same time also reduces the anti-oxidant capacity of the lungs. Nicotine and the oxidants cause point mutations in the Read More

Introduction: This paper presents a summary of what is known about the effectiveness of interventions to address health inequalities during pregnancy. The research was carried out as part of a wider review of the literature relating to interventions to address inequalities in the early years. This contributed to the work of Scotland's Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities, which reported in June 2008. Objectives: T Read More

Only small proportions of women are aware of their HIV status and can enter HIV treatment and care. The remainder cannot access essential HIV services, placing them at high-risk for early death and facilitating HIV transmission. To rectify this, many international organisations now recommend routine HIV testing in clinical settings. Provider-patient encounters in reproductive health services provide an ideal opportun Read More

Background and Objective: Botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), now commonly used for reducing muscular spasms in other neuromuscular disorders, is now increasingly proposed also for treating pelvic floor disorders, including chronic pelvic pain syndromes, vaginismus, vulvodynia and vulvar vestibulitis syndrome. To provide up-to-date information on these advances we reviewed the literature about BoNT injections for pain an Read More

Endometriosis is an enigmatic, debilitating disease which affects as many as 15% of all women of reproductive age and is characterized by pelvic pain and infertility. Current treatment regimes used to manage the disease do so by inducing a hypoestrogenic state. While the absence of circulating estrogen levels lead to a regression of the disease, this hypoestrogenism also induces many unpleasant side-effects. As such, Read More

Despite years of intensive investigation that has been made in understanding women's susceptibility to breast cancer, it remains a major cause of death worldwide. In mathematical terms, breast cancer can be outlined as a non-linear system that advances in time and in space through different states and a number of transitions from one state to another over a certain time interval. Breast cancer emerges from multipl Read More

Puerperal ovarian vein thrombosis (POVT) is an uncommon but potentially fatal complication of post gynecological surgery, which is often diagnosed by clinical findings and indirect radiologic signs. Ultrasound (US) and multislice computed tomography (MCT) imaging now offer reliable and accurate methods for suspected POVT. We present here a case of postcaesarean ovarian vein thrombosis and describe its clinical a Read More