Recent developments in obstetrics

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.604

BMJ 2003;327:604-608 (13 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.604

Clinical review

Recent developments in obstetrics

Andrew H Shennan, professor of obstetrics¹

¹ Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's School of Medicine, St Thomas's Hospital, London SE1 7EH

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

Two of the most challenging areas in antenatal care are prematurityand pre-eclampsia. Between them they affect one in 10 of allpregnant women, and their prevalence is static. Until recentlymanagement options have been limited. Improved understandingof the basic pathophysiology is changing this.

Sources and selection

This article describes those advances that have made an impacton the management of prematurity and pre-eclampsia. Anothermajor concern in obstetrics is the rising number of interventions,particularly caesarean sections, without obvious benefit tomother or baby. Recent research has highlighted several simplebut effective strategies that could help influence this trend.These include management of previous caesarean sections andbreech presentation and more appropriate use of fetal monitoringand epidurals in labour; knowledge of these will be valuableto any clinician who comes into contact with pregnant women.The articles selected are from relevant searches in Englishfrom Pubmed and the Cochrane Collaboration, . . . [Full text of this article]

Pre-eclampsia

Prematurity

Breech presentation at term and external cephalic version

Reducing operative deliveries

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