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Birth centers were associated with a higher risk of adverse infant outcomes, including neonatal death, according to a retrospective cohort study.
Neonatal death was more than four times more likely to occur in a freestanding birth center than in a hospital setting when delivered by a midwife (aOR 4.44, 95% CI 2.97-6.64), reported Amos Grünebaum, MD, of the Lenox Hill Hospital and Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, New York, and colleagues.
First-time mothers had an even greater risk, being eight times more likely to experience neonatal death in birth centers (aOR 8.00, 95% 5.56-14.03), Grünebaum said in a presentation at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) virtual meeting.
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Women who conceived via assisted reproductive technologies (ART) were more likely to develop eclampsia during pregnancy, researchers found.
ART procedures, such as in vitro fertilization, were associated with more than a 50% increased risk of eclampsia (aOR 1.53, 95% CI 1.40-1.67), reported Adriana Facchiano, a medical student at Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and colleagues.
Multiple gestations which occurred in almost 30% of ART pregnancies also were associated with eclampsia, and more research is needed to analyze this potential risk, Facchiano said in a presentation at the American College for Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) virtual meeting.
Alaska health officials have announced that vaccines for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years could be available in the coming weeks.Â
During a meeting streamed on Facebook Live on Wednesday, Lisa Rabinowitz, a staff physician with the state health department, said 2,260 children were studied during clinical trials for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.Â
The participants were split equally into two groups: One was given a placebo, and the other was given the vaccine.Â
Results showed that 18 participants in the placebo group contracted COVID-19, while none in the other group contracted the virus, demonstrating the vaccine s â100% efficacyâ among adolescents, according to a Pfizer press release from March 31.Â