[Maternal mortality due to heart disease]

Cardiac disease and pregnancy

The pregnant state imposes a supraphysiologic strain on the pregnant woman's cardiac performance through complex biochemical, electric, and physiologic changes affecting the blood volume, myocardial contractility, and resistance of the vascular bed. In the presence of underlying heart disease, these changes can compromise the woman's hemodynamic balance, her life, and that of her unborn child. Cardiac pathology represents a heterogeneous group of disorders, each with its own hemodynamic, genetic, obstetric, and social implications. Physicians caring for these women should actively address the issue of reproduction. Ideally, pregnancy should be planned to occur after optimization of cardiac performance by medical or surgical means. Once pregnancy is achieved, the concerted effort of a multidisciplinary team of obstetricians, cardiologists, anesthesiologists, nursing, social, and other services provides the best opportunity to carry the pregnancy to a successful outcome.

Beyond maternal mortality--magnitude, interrelationship, and consequences of women's health, pregnancy-related complications and nutritional status on pregnancy outcomes

The magnitude of maternal mortality in developing countries and its disparity with similar statistics from the developed world has touched a responsive chord among policy makers and health services program officials. What is not well appreciated, however, is that maternal mortality is only the tip of the iceberg--for every one maternal death, acute obstetrical complications cause suffering in nearly 100 women, 250 women contract a sexually transmitted disease, and 1000 women suffer stunting and/or anemia. All of these problems impact on the pregnancy outcome, both for the woman as well as for the newborn. Through a review of the literature, the magnitude, interrelationships and consequences of these various problems are described. The woman and the newborn are a dyad, a unit; what affects the woman typically affects the fetus and is manifest in the newborn. Safe motherhood programs need to pay attention to both, realizing that interventions aimed at the women can benefit the next generation.

Estudios sobre la mujer en tres Revistas de Salud Pública

Este trabajo pretende observar la influencia que la "Conferência Nacional de Saúde e Direitos da Mulher", realizada en Brasília, en 1986, tuvo sobre las principales publicaciones periódicas del área de la salud pública de Brasil, respecto al tema de la mujer. Se muestran los artículos publicados en tres revistas del área, relacionados con la Salud de la Mujer; sin pretender realizar un análisis profundo del contenido de los artículos citados. Para ello, se organizaron por área temática los artículos publicados a partir de 1986 en las tres revistas: Revista de Saúde Pública (Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo, Saúde em Debate (Centro Brasileiro de Estudos de Saúde), y Cadernos de Saúde Pública (Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz). Se examinaron los artículos que tratan de la mujer, número de publicaciones y aspectos tratados en su contenido.