Search
Influenza and COVID-19 infections during pregnancy may have serious adverse consequences for women as well as their infants. However, uptake of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy remains suboptimal. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a multi-component nudge intervention to improve influenza and COVID-19 vaccine uptake among pregnant women.
Vaccination in pregnancy is the best strategy to reduce complications from influenza or pertussis infection in infants who are too young to be protected directly from vaccination. Pregnant women are also at risk of influenza complications preventable through antenatal vaccination. Both vaccines are funded under the National Immunisation Program for pregnant women in Australia, but coverage is not routinely reported nationally.
Adverse pregnancy outcomes including maternal mortality, stillbirth, preterm birth, intrauterine growth restriction cause millions of deaths each year. More effective interventions are urgently needed. Maternal immunization could be one such intervention protecting the mother and newborn from infection through its pathogen-specific effects.
Positive maternal mental health during the perinatal period contributes to general well-being and positive emotional bonds with the child, encouraging an optimal developmental trajectory. Online interventions to enhance maternal well-being and develop coping skills, such as meditation-based interventions, can be a low-cost way to improve mother and child outcomes.
Growing evidence from preclinical studies, epidemiology, and randomized controlled trials supports a causal role for diet quality in mental disorder risk, and clinical psychiatric guidelines now place diet, along with other life-style behaviors, as foundational treatment targets for mood disorders.
Psychological distress in the early postpartum period can have long-lasting deleterious effects on a mother's well-being and negatively affect her infant's development. Intervention approaches based in contemplative practices such as mindfulness and loving-kindness and compassion are intended to alleviate distress and cultivate well-being and can be delivered effectively as digital mental health interventions.
Contemporary models of NICU care emphasize the critical role of parents in supporting their infant's development. Fathers play an important, but underutilized, role throughout their infant's NICU journey. This narrative review describes the main direct and indirect mechanisms through which fathers support the development of their NICU infant, and the barriers and facilitators to this support as described in current research.
Evidence suggests consumption of a Mediterranean diet (MD) can positively impact both maternal and offspring health, potentially mediated by a beneficial effect on inflammatory pathways. We aimed to apply metabolic profiling of serum and urine samples to assess differences between women who were stratified into high and low alignment to a MD throughout pregnancy and investigate the relationship of the diet to inflammatory markers.
In-utero hyperglycemia exposure influences later cardiometabolic risk, although few studies include women with pre-existing type 2 diabetes (T2D) or assess maternal body mass index (BMI) as a potential confounder.
The incidence and severity of heatwaves are increasing globally with concomitant health complications. Pregnancy is a critical time in the life course at risk of adverse health outcomes due to heat exposure. Dynamic physiological adaptations, which include altered thermoregulatory pathways, occur in pregnancy.