Out of 206 fourth-grade students, 19 met criteria for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. This was found in a pilot study conducted at the University of Gothenburg. The results indicate that birth defects caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy may be as common in Sweden as in several other European countries. The study ran at six schools in western Sweden and constituted an add-on to the regular health check-up for all fourth-grade students. The participants underwent a physical examination, review of medical records and psychological tests of memory, attention, and problem-solving ability. Parents and teachers described the children's behavior and school performance, and the mothers were interviewed about their dietary habits and alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Of the 206 participants examined, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) were found in 19 children. Ten had alcohol-related neurobehavioral disorder, four had partial fetal alcohol syndrome, and five had the most severe variant, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). The overall prevalence of FASD in the study group was 5.5 percent, of which 2.4 percent concerned FAS. "Conducting the study in school as an add-on to the regular health check-up proved feasible. Our study is small, so a large-scale national study is needed to obtain a fuller picture. If the results are replicated, it would indicate that Sweden is on a par with many other European countries", says Valdemar Landgren, researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, who is affiliated with the university's Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre and is the study's first author. There are no prior studies investigating the prevalence of FASD in Sweden. According to nationwide statistics from Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare, only about 60 children receive such a diagnosis each year. Today, these conditions are rarely diagnosed in Swedish healthcare. One reason may be that physicians don't assess for conditions of which they are unaware or believe to be very rare. Empirical knowledge about the actual prevalence is of importance for medical education and diagnostics, and for society to be able to work preventively." Valdemar Landgren, researcher at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders range from mild to severe and can affect learning, concentration, memory, impulse control, and motor skills. Some children also have distinctive facial features and low birth weight. The prevalence of FASD is estimated at 4.8 percent in Ireland, 4.5 percent in Italy, and 5.3 percent in Croatia. University of Gothenburg Landgren, V., et al. (2025). Prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: A Pilot Study in Western Sweden. Acta Paediatrica. doi.org/10.1111/apa.70059. Posted in: Child Health News | Medical Research News Cancel reply to comment Dr. Jian Dr. Yifan Jian explores the evolution of OCT, challenges in retinal imaging, and AI's potential in biophotonics, shaping the future of ophthalmic diagnostics. Mohammad Aklaq Automation and machine learning are transforming antibody discovery at LabGenius, with the EVA™ platform enabling rapid, high-throughput experimental processes. Conversations on AFM: Exploring the nanomechanics of living cells In this interview Prof. Dr. Kristina Kusche-Vihrog speaks about the nanomechanics of living cells and their implications for cardiovascular disease. News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance with these terms and conditions. Please note that medical information found on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide. 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New research explores whether routine hormonal contraception after childbirth may be quietly fueling a rise in postpartum depression — and what it means for millions of mothers.
Study: Postpartum Hormonal Contraceptive Use and Risk of Depression. Image Credit: sweet_tomato / Shutterstock.com
A recent study published in JAMA Network Open investigates whether the use of hormonal contraception (HC) increases the risk of postpartum depression.
HC has previously been identified as a risk factor for depression. However, the impact of HC use on the development of depression during the postpartum period, which already increases the risk of mental health disorders, remains unclear.
Over the past 20 years, HC prescriptions during the postpartum period have risen, with the duration between delivery and the initiation of these medications becoming increasingly shorter. In fact, current estimates indicate that about 40% of mothers in Denmark will initiate HC within the first year after delivery.
This raises the issue of whether the routine practice of HC initiation in the postpartum period inflates the already heightened risk of depression.”
The current study obtained data from Danish national registries on all women who gave birth for the first time between January 1, 1997, and December 31, 2022. None of the women included in this analysis had a history of depression within the 24 months preceding delivery.
HC was stratified into combined oral contraceptives (COCs), combined nonoral contraceptives (CNOCs), progestogen-only pills (POPs), and progestogen-only nonoral contraceptives (PNOCs).
The cohort included 610,038 primiparous mothers, 41% of whom began using a form of HC within 12 months of childbirth. The mean age of HC users was 27.6 years as compared to 29.6 years for non-users.
Among women who were prescribed HC during the postpartum period, 24% used COCs, 1% CNOC, 11% POP, and 5% PNOC. Less than 1% of the study cohort was lost to follow-up.
Approximately 50% of women initiated HC use between seven and 10 weeks postpartum. Within 12 months of childbirth, 1.5% of women developed depression, with a crude rate of 21 depression cases for every 1,000 person-years in postpartum mothers prescribed HC as compared to 14 for every 1,000 person-years among non-users.
The absolute risk for postpartum depression among non-users was about 36% above the baseline risk. However, this risk increased to 54% above baseline with HC use, which equated to an 18% increase in absolute risk.
Overall, the risk of postpartum depression rose by 50% among HC users as compared to non-users during the first 12 months after childbirth. This increased risk was observed when all types of HC were considered, except for POPs. When POPs were examined, an initial reduction in depression risk was followed by a late rise in depression rates after eight months postpartum.
After adjusting for lifestyle, sociodemographic factors, and smoking, a 72% increased risk of developing depression was observed for women prescribed COCs, whereas CNOCs like vaginal rings and patches increased the risk of developing depression by 97%. The risk of depression was also higher by 40% among women prescribed PNOCs like implants, depot injections, and levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine systems (LNG-IUS).
Women with no history of mental illness were 63% more likely to develop postpartum depression as compared to 32% of women who had a history of mental health issues.
The timing of HC initiation was also inversely related to the rate of depression. Depression rates increased over the first seven months among those who started HC early compared to non-users.
The early postpartum period may be an especially vulnerable time for depressive changes in women. This association is multifactorial, as the postpartum period is often accompanied by extreme changes in hormone levels, combined with various psychological stressors during this period.
In the current study, the risk of developing depression was observed for all types of HC, except for POPs. Women who breastfeed during the postpartum period are often advised to take progestogen-only contraceptives, as combined hormonal contraceptives can have a negative impact of lactation. Thus, additional research is needed to determine whether the current study findings are affected by selection bias and elucidate the role of breastfeeding in the risk of developing depression postpartum.
These findings raise the issue of whether the incidence of depression postpartum may be inflated by routine HC initiation, which his important information to convey at postpartum contraceptive counselling.”
Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Medical Condition News | Women's Health News | Healthcare News
Written by
Dr. Liji Thomas is an OB-GYN, who graduated from the Government Medical College, University of Calicut, Kerala, in 2001. Liji practiced as a full-time consultant in obstetrics/gynecology in a private hospital for a few years following her graduation. She has counseled hundreds of patients facing issues from pregnancy-related problems and infertility, and has been in charge of over 2,000 deliveries, striving always to achieve a normal delivery rather than operative.
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Antibiotic resistance tends to stabilize over time, according to a study published April 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Sonja Lehtinen from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and colleagues. Antibiotic resistance is a major public health concern, contributing to an estimated 5 million deaths per year. Understanding long-term resistance patterns could help public health researchers to monitor and characterize drug resistance as well as inform the impact of interventions on resistance. In this study, researchers analyzed drug resistance in more than 3 million bacterial samples collected across 30 countries in Europe from 1998 to 2019. Samples encompassed eight bacteria species important to public health, including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella pneumoniae. They found that while antibiotic resistance initially rises in response to antibiotic use, it does not rise indefinitely. Instead, resistance rates reached an equilibrium over the 20-year period in most species. Antibiotic use contributed to how quickly resistance levels stabilized as well as variability in resistance rates across different countries. But the association between changes in drug resistance and antibiotic use was weak, suggesting that additional, yet unknown, factors are at play. The study highlights that continued increase in antibiotic resistance is not inevitable and provides new insights to help researchers monitor drug resistance. Senior author Francois Blanquart notes: "When we looked into the dynamics of antibiotic resistance in many important bacterial pathogens all over Europe and in the last few decades, we often found that resistance frequency initially increases and then stabilises to an intermediate level. The consumption of the antibiotic in the country explained both the speed of initial increase and the level of stabilization." In this study, we were interested in whether antibiotic resistance frequencies in Europe were systematically increasing over the long-term. Instead, we find a pattern where, after an initial increase, resistance frequencies tend to reach a stable plateau." Sonja Lehtinen, University of Lausanne PLOS Emons, M., et al. (2025). The evolution of antibiotic resistance in Europe, 1998–2019. PLOS Pathogens. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1012945. Posted in: Medical Science News | Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News | Healthcare News Cancel reply to comment Dr. Jian Dr. Yifan Jian explores the evolution of OCT, challenges in retinal imaging, and AI's potential in biophotonics, shaping the future of ophthalmic diagnostics. Mohammad Aklaq Automation and machine learning are transforming antibody discovery at LabGenius, with the EVA™ platform enabling rapid, high-throughput experimental processes. Conversations on AFM: Exploring the nanomechanics of living cells In this interview Prof. Dr. Kristina Kusche-Vihrog speaks about the nanomechanics of living cells and their implications for cardiovascular disease. News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance with these terms and conditions. Please note that medical information found on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide. Last Updated: Friday 4 Apr 2025 News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2025 Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net. To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account. Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content. A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue. Please check the box above to proceed. Great. Ask your question. Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses. Read the full terms. Terms While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided. Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles. Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information. Read the full Terms & Conditions. Provide Feedback
Today, the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) launched its first Insights Paper, "The convergence of healthcare and pharmaceuticals with quantum computing: A new fronter in medicine", exploring how quantum computing could enable a step-change in medicine and healthcare delivery over the coming decades. The paper examines the potential of quantum computing to address some of the most complex and pressing challenges facing healthcare systems, both nationally and globally. While quantum computing remains an emerging technology, with most applications currently at the research and development stage, early evidence from proof-of-concept studies highlights its potential to transform areas where conventional computing may reach its limits.
Drawing on extensive engagement with stakeholders across the healthcare and life sciences sectors - including workshops, bilateral consultations, and expert interviews - alongside deep technical analysis, the paper provides a comprehensive review of the current landscape. It identifies near-term opportunities and long-term challenges associated with the adoption of quantum computing in healthcare and pharmaceuticals and reflects key insights and recommendations gathered from a diversity of sector stakeholders.
Our engagement with the sector highlights a growing appetite for coordinated, mission-led initiatives to unlock the potential of quantum computing in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. This paper provides actionable insights for industry leaders, policymakers, and funders to realize the opportunities that quantum computing presents for patient outcomes and healthcare innovation."
Dr Simon Plant, Deputy Director for Innovation, NQCC
Conventional computing has already enabled remarkable advances in healthcare - today artificial intelligence aids diagnostics, high-performance computing accelerates drug development, and machine learning supports personalized treatment. However, bottlenecks remain for solving increasingly complex computational problems, with a need for ever greater speed, accuracy and efficiency.
Quantum computing offers an opportunity to surpass these barriers in the future - providing new ways to tackle biological complexity and high-dimensional data - areas where traditional computing methods struggle to scale. The paper highlights that more than 40 proof-of-concept use cases have already been explored in the literature, indicating promising areas for future development, including:
These opportunities align with national priorities set-out in the NHS Long Term Plan and support the objectives of the UK National Quantum Strategy - particularly Mission 1 (Quantum Computing) and the Quantum Healthcare Mission, which seeks to integrate quantum-enabled solutions into every NHS Trust by 2030.
The report highlights the sector's appetite in pursuing large-scale, international Grand Challenges - similar in ambition to the Human Genome Project - as a mechanism to coordinate effort, accelerate progress, and deliver real-world impact from quantum healthcare applications.
While the opportunities are considerable, the report identifies several critical challenges that must be addressed to realize quantum computing's potential in healthcare, including:
As the field evolves, regulatory and ethical considerations will also become increasingly important, including data privacy, regulatory compliance, and the responsible use of quantum-enhanced healthcare decision-making systems.
The Insights Paper underscores the importance of early engagement with healthcare stakeholders - particularly end-users, as well as the development of open innovation forums and dedicated testbeds to foster knowledge exchange and the co-development of quantum healthcare solutions. Identification of near-term impactful use-cases remains a priority with the sector emphasizing collaboration as a key mechanism for progress.
The publication comes at a time of growing global momentum. Leading initiatives - such as the Cleveland Clinic's partnership with IBM, which established the world's first quantum computer dedicated to healthcare research, and the Wellcome Leap Quantum for Bio (Q4Bio) program - are pioneering the use of quantum technologies in drug discovery, genomics, and precision medicine. These efforts complement partnerships announced by leading quantum computing developers and pharmaceutical companies worldwide, focused on addressing practical healthcare challenges.
As quantum hardware and algorithms continue to advance, the NQCC anticipates a shift from proof-of-concept demonstrations to real-world impact, with the prospect of accelerating drug development, enhancing diagnostics, personalizing treatments, and optimizing healthcare operations in the future.
NQCC
Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Genomics | Healthcare News
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Rutgers Health researchers have developed an oral antiviral drug candidate for COVID-19 that could overcome major limitations of Paxlovid, currently the most prescribed oral treatment. As with its predecessor, the new drug candidate, Jun13296, targets a different viral protein than Paxlovid does and works alone rather than in combination with another drug called ritonavir. But Jun13296 beats the same lab's first effort on several crucial metrics. This new compound is more potent than our first-generation candidate. In animal studies, our second-generation inhibitor still provides 90% protection at just one-third the dose of our initial compound and significantly outperforms it in reducing viral loads in the lungs." Jun Wang, senior author of the study published in Nature Communications and professor of medicinal chemistry at Rutgers' Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy It also addresses Paxlovid's major limitation: drug interaction-induced side effects. "Most people who are at high risk of COVID-induced complications already take medications for diseases like high blood pressure or diabetes," Wang said. "A large percentage of them cannot take Paxlovid because of drug-drug interaction problems." Wang's team designed the new compound to target a structure in the virus called its papain-like protease (PLpro) rather than the main protease targeted by Paxlovid. In laboratory testing, Jun13296 remained effective against Paxlovid-resistant strains of the virus. "We have data to confirm that our PLpro inhibitor retains potent inhibition against all the variants we have tested," Wang said. The collaborator Xufang Deng's lab from the Oklahoma State University tested the compound in mice infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Five-day survival rates were 90% for mice given Jun13296, 40% for those given the same low dose of the first-generation compound Jun12682 and 0% for untreated mice. The drug also significantly reduced inflammation and viral levels in the lungs. At 75 milligrams per kilogram, Jun13296 provided strong inflammation protection, while the first-generation compound Jun12682 showed only moderate efficacy at this reduced dosage. Most promising is that Jun13296 worked at comparable or lower doses than Paxlovid in similar animal models. "If you look at the animal model which people have conducted with Paxlovid, they need to treat the mice with like 150 or even up to 300 milligrams per kilo to achieve similar efficacy," Wang said. Efficacy at lower doses helps patients because it reduces the chance that a drug will have serious side effects, Wang said. Unlike Paxlovid, Jun13296 shows no inhibition of major drug-metabolizing CYP450 enzymes in laboratory tests, suggesting it would not interfere with other medications and does not need to co-administer with ritonavir, thereby circumventing the drug interaction-induced side effects. Significant contributions to this study were made by Eddy Arnold's Lab at Rutgers' Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM), which solved the X-ray crystal structures of PLpro-critical for structure-based drug design. Moving the drug toward human trials faces significant hurdles, primarily funding. Wang estimated the next phase will cost "tens of millions of dollars" beyond what academic labs can typically secure. "Moving forward to investigational new drug application-enabling studies and human clinical trials, it can cost tens of millions of dollars," Wang said. "That's basically beyond what we can do in academia." His team is looking to partner with pharmaceutical companies or non-profit organizations to advance the compound through the required pre-clinical studies and eventually to Food and Drug Administration applications. The development comes as COVID-19 continues to evolve, including variants resistant to existing treatments. Wang said having multiple treatment options remains crucial for pandemic preparedness. Even if not immediately commercialized, completing early-stage clinical trials would mean reducing the time to get the treatment approved if SARS-CoV-2 evolves and causes another epidemic or pandemic. The methodologies developed by the research team are broadly applicable to other infectious diseases beyond COVID-19. Wang's lab specializes in developing antivirals against multiple respiratory viruses, including influenza and enteroviruses. Rutgers University Jadhav, P., et al. (2025). Design of quinoline SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease inhibitors as oral antiviral drug candidates. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56902-x. Posted in: Drug Discovery & Pharmaceuticals | Medical Research News | Disease/Infection News Cancel reply to comment Dr. Jian Dr. Yifan Jian explores the evolution of OCT, challenges in retinal imaging, and AI's potential in biophotonics, shaping the future of ophthalmic diagnostics. Mohammad Aklaq Automation and machine learning are transforming antibody discovery at LabGenius, with the EVA™ platform enabling rapid, high-throughput experimental processes. Conversations on AFM: Exploring the nanomechanics of living cells In this interview Prof. Dr. Kristina Kusche-Vihrog speaks about the nanomechanics of living cells and their implications for cardiovascular disease. News-Medical.Net provides this medical information service in accordance with these terms and conditions. Please note that medical information found on this website is designed to support, not to replace the relationship between patient and physician/doctor and the medical advice they may provide. Last Updated: Friday 4 Apr 2025 News-Medical.net - An AZoNetwork Site Owned and operated by AZoNetwork, © 2000-2025 Your AI Powered Scientific Assistant Hi, I'm Azthena, you can trust me to find commercial scientific answers from News-Medical.net. To start a conversation, please log into your AZoProfile account first, or create a new account. Registered members can chat with Azthena, request quotations, download pdf's, brochures and subscribe to our related newsletter content. A few things you need to know before we start. Please read and accept to continue. Please check the box above to proceed. Great. Ask your question. Azthena may occasionally provide inaccurate responses. Read the full terms. Terms While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided. Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles. Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information. Read the full Terms & Conditions. Provide Feedback