Archives

  • 2018-07
  • 2019-04
  • 2019-05
  • 2019-06
  • 2019-07
  • 2019-08
  • 2019-09
  • 2019-10
  • 2019-11
  • 2019-12
  • 2020-01
  • 2020-02
  • 2020-03
  • 2020-04
  • 2020-05
  • 2020-06
  • 2020-07
  • 2020-08
  • 2020-09
  • 2020-10
  • 2020-11
  • 2020-12
  • 2021-01
  • 2021-02
  • 2021-03
  • 2021-04
  • 2021-05
  • 2021-06
  • 2021-07
  • 2021-08
  • 2021-09
  • 2021-10
  • 2021-11
  • 2021-12
  • 2022-01
  • 2022-02
  • 2022-03
  • 2022-04
  • 2022-05
  • 2022-06
  • 2022-07
  • 2022-08
  • 2022-09
  • 2022-10
  • 2022-11
  • 2022-12
  • 2023-01
  • 2023-02
  • 2023-03
  • 2023-04
  • 2023-05
  • 2023-06
  • 2023-07
  • 2023-08
  • 2023-09
  • 2023-10
  • 2023-11
  • 2023-12
  • 2024-01
  • 2024-02
  • 2024-03
  • Some health related topics are guaranteed to stir up heated

    2019-06-05

    Some health-related topics are guaranteed to stir up heated debate in the general public whenever they lpa receptor crop up in the news. Publishing a research paper on chronic fatigue syndrome, homoeopathy, or mode of childbirth is a recipe for a media field day, a lively letters section, and a jammed inbox. experienced its first taste of such events when we published Cesar Victora and colleagues\' birth cohort on breastfeeding and adult intelligence in March this year. Newspaper headlines proclaimed the “good news”, but many readers (notably in high-income countries) weren\'t so sure. “As if mothers don\'t feel enough pressure”, tweeted one. “What a load of rubbish…There may be health benefits in third world countries but this does not apply to the western world”, pronounced another by email. “Propaganda!” accused a Facebook follower. Some of the more scientific arguments are published in a series of Correspondence letters in this month\'s issue. That breastfeeding should be such a polarising social issue in high-income countries is deeply troubling for health professionals intent on making progress with reducing neonatal mortality worldwide. Lack of breastfeeding has been associated with a four-fold increased risk of dying from infectious causes in the first month of life in low-income and middle-income countries, and \'s on maternal and child undernutrition found that suboptimum breastfeeding results in more than 800 000 child deaths annually. Only 38% of babies worldwide are exclusively breastfed. World Breastfeeding Week, celebrated Aug 1–7, aims to change that, citing goal 5 of WHO\'s global nutrition targets—to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months to at least 50% by 2025. A published last year recommends a set of five key actions by which to achieve this target, the first of which is to “Provide hospital- and health facilities-based capacity to support exclusive breastfeeding, including revitalizing, expanding and institutionalizing the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative in health systems”. The (BFHI) is a WHO/UNICEF programme to improve exclusive breastfeeding among new mothers in health facilities worldwide by training health workers to provide the optimum conditions for success. Since its launch in 1991, and subsequent updating to include care of women with HIV, 160 countries have implemented the initiative. At its heart are the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, which include informing all women of the benefits of breastfeeding, helping them to initiate breastfeeding within half an hour of birth, and allowing mothers to remain with their babies at all times. The final step involves fostering the establishment of breastfeeding support groups in the community and referring mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic. Once all steps are in place, a health facility can apply for external accreditation as a Baby-Friendly Hospital.
    Gretchen Stevens and colleagues\' study in analyses 134 reports from 83 countries of population-representative data for serum retinol concentration and shows several trends in vitamin A deficiency. First, prevalence is diminishing in a statistically significant way in east and southeast Asia and Oceania. Second, Latin America and Caribbean nations might be making progress. Third, prevalence remains unchanged in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Stevens and colleagues\' most interesting conclusion is that this “evidence for both prevalence and absolute burden of vitamin A deficiency should be used to reconsider, and possibly revise, the list of priority countries for high-dose vitamin A supplementation”.
    In , Kirti Iyengar and colleagues report findings from a randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial in 731 women, which compared the effectiveness of standard clinic follow-up after medical abortion versus self-assessment with use of a low-sensitivity urine pregnancy test at home. The primary outcome was efficacy of the abortion procedure, defined as complete abortion without the need for additional clinical intervention within 30 days of study enrolment. The findings showed no significant differences between the two study groups: 95% of women in the home-assessment group reported having a complete abortion compared with 93% of women in the clinic follow-up group.