Alternative medicine fans more likely to get shots
Adults who use alternative or complementary medicines are more likely to receive recommended vaccinations than their peers who don’t use these products, according to a study by researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among 30,617 adults participating in the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, the 36 percent who said they had used complementary or alternative medicines (CAM) recently were more likely to have received shots for preventing the flu, pneumococcal infections and hepatitis B.
Nevertheless, most people the CDC considers “priority” recipients for the flu and pneumococcal vaccines because of a high-risk condition didn’t get them, Dr. Shannon Stokley of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in Atlanta and her colleagues found.
Early heart monitoring predicts pregnancy trouble
In healthy women who’ve never given birth before, alterations in heart function and blood flow in the uterus in early pregnancy may help predict preeclampsia, a potentially serious complication involving high blood pressure, that often leads to premature delivery, UK investigators report.
In the new study, 534 women pregnant with a single fetus underwent ultrasound testing of their heart and the blood vessels that supply the uterus between 11 and 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The research team compared heart function and uterine blood flow in women who had preeclampsia, a small infant, both or neither. The findings appear in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Early breast-feeding reduces newborn deaths
Initiation of breast-feeding within the first hour after birth or during the first day of life reduces the risk of death for the newborn, according to results of a study from Nepal. Although newborn death rates are already very low in the US, in low-resource countries like Nepal, they can be relatively high.
Dr. Luke Mullany and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and a team with the Nepal Nutrition Intervention Project, Katmandu, analyzed data on measures to reduce newborn deaths.
