Gynecology Blog

Pregorexia is a term used to describe a situation in which a pregnant woman becomes preoccupied with controlling her weight gain through extreme dieting and exercise. While pregorexia is possible — and could harm a baby's health — it's rare. In fact, research shows that far more women gain too much, rather than too little, weight during pregnancy.

No matter what the scale says, however, some women do excessively worry about their weight gain and experience body image issues during pregnancy. The risk of pregorexia may be higher for women who have a history of eating disorders and those who have a weak social support system. More...

According to a group of scientists, premature birth tends to run in families. In the University of Aberdeen study, which was published in Obstetrics and Gynecology journal, researchers discovered that early births risk is linked to the science of genetics.

The research was based on maternity records of 22,343 Scottish moms and their daughters. Boffins found that females born ahead of time or who have brothers or sisters who were born prematurely are 50-60% more likely to have a premature baby themselves. More...

Parents will soon be able to determine the gender of their unborn accurately at early stages of pregnancy, a new study finds. Ultrasound performed in the second trimester had long been the easiest method to detect the gender of the fetus.

In cases, in which the determination of the gender needed to be performed in earlier stages due to medical reasons, however, invasive tests such as amniocentesis, associated with a small risk of miscarriage, were inevitable. More...

Nyree Paten gained so little weight during her recent pregnancy that some of her neighbors did not even realize she was expecting. A few days before her due date, she weighed only two pounds more than she had at her first prenatal visit.

But Ms. Paten, 35, of the Bronx, was under doctor’s orders to gain no more than 10 or 15 pounds — she was already about 100 pounds overweight. More...

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is one of 10 programs in the country to receive a $2.4 million grant to establish a scholars program.

The five-year grant, from the federal National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), establishes the medical school as a Women's Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Career Development Center. The initiative promotes research that will benefit the health of women. Scholars will expand research on subjects ranging from women's infectious diseases to maternal fetal physiology to endometrial cancer. More...