During 1994 and 1995, an increase in the number and severity of group A streptococcal (GAS) infections was noted in North Carolina. Ninety-six patients had GAS recovered from blood and other sterile body fluids, abscesses, and soft tissue. The overall case fatality rate was 11% but was much higher in patients with toxic shock syndrome (55%) and necrotizing fasciitis (58%). Recent invasive GAS isolates were compared with pre-1994 invasive isolates and temporally related pharyngeal isolates by M protein serotyping, pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and polymerase chain reaction amplification of the streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin A gene. Serotypes M1 and M3 accounted for 50% of recent invasive isolates (1994-1995) and 58% of pharyngeal isolates (1994). The latter isolates demonstrated PFGE patterns that were identical to invasive M1 and M3 strains, suggesting that pharyngeal infections may have served as a reservoir for virulent GAS clones.
Objective: Review and examine existing research, current strategies, and directions for future research on smoking cessation relapse and relapse prevention in pregnancy and postpartum.Methods: A MEDLINE/PubMed search in 2002 and 2003 for articles containing the key words "smoking," "pregnancy," "cessation," and "cessation relapse prevention" and references of retrieved papers yielded a review of more than 500 articles. Only 14 of these addressed program-based strategies to increase cessation among pregnant women through relapse prevention programs.Conclusion: Although there is much information on the rationale and strategies for smoking cessation for pregnant women, fewer studies exist on how to prevent relapse. Throughout the past decade, tobacco use has remained the single most important modifiable cause of poor pregnancy outcome in the United States. Smoking accounts for 20% of deliveries of infants with low birth weights, 8% of preterm births, and 5% of all perinatal deaths. Smoking during pregnancy and in postpartum contributes to sudden infant death syndrome and changes in brain and nervous system development. The direct medical costs of a complicated birth for a smoker are 66% higher than for nonsmokers. 1 Relapse rates range from 70% to 85% among women who smoke but quit at some time during their pregnancy. A recent 10-year study (1987 to 1996) of 8808 pregnant women and 178,499 nonpregnant women of childbearing age indicated that the prevalence of current smoking has decreased significantly among both pregnant (16.3% to 11.8%) and nonpregnant women (26.7% to 23.6%).2 This drop in smoking over time among pregnant women was primarily caused by the overall decline in smoking initiation rates among women of childbearing age, not by an increased rate of smoking cessation related to pregnancy.Although one fifth of pregnant smokers spontaneously quit by the time of their first antenatal visit, 3 and pregnant women are half as likely as nonpregnant women to be smokers, 2 an estimated 20.4% of women smokers continue smoking throughout their pregnancies. 4 For women who do quit during pregnancy and who received a planned intervention, between 6.2% and 37.2% remained smoke-free. The range of relapse rates is broad because of the varying success of the cessation intervention strategy. Between 29% and 85% of women who get a planned intervention relapse after delivery.
5-16Although there is much information on why and how pregnant women should quit, fewer data exist on how to prevent relapse. This article is a literature review on relapse and relapse prevention in pregnancy; we looked at existing research, current strategies, and directions for future research.
In this national sample of residents and practicing physicians in three specialties, physicians were ill-prepared to counsel breast-feeding mothers. Deliberate efforts must be made to incorporate clinically based breast-feeding training into residency programs and continuing education workshops to better prepare physicians for their role in breast-feeding promotion.
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