Women’s existential experiences within Swedish abortion care

Objective: To explore Swedish women’s experiences of clinical abortion care in relation to their need for existential support. Methods: Individual in-depth interviews with 24 women with previous experience of unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Participants were recruited between 2006 and 2009. Interviews were analysed by latent content analysis. Findings: Although the women had similar experiences of the abortion care offered, the needs they expressed differed. Swedish abortion care was described as rational and neutral, with physical issues dominating over existential ones. For some women, the medical procedures triggered existential experiences of life, meaning, and morality. While some women abstained from any form of existential support, others expressed a need to reflect upon the existential aspects and/or to reconcile their decision emotionally. Conclusion: As women’s needs for existential support in relation to abortion vary, women can be disappointed with the personnel’s ability to respond to their thoughts and feelings related to the abortion. To ensure abortion care personnel meet the physical, psychological, and existential needs of each patient, better resources and new lines of education are needed to ensure abortion personnel are equipped to deal with the existential aspects of abortion care.Impact of Religio

Prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and childhood fat mass in the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Study

Early life exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals may alter adipogenesis and energy balance leading to changes in obesity risk. Several studies have evaluated the association of prenatal bisphenol A exposure with childhood body size but only one study of male infants has examined other environmental phenols. Therefore, we assessed associations between prenatal exposure to environmental phenols and fat mass in a prospective birth cohort. We quantified four phenol biomarkers in third trimester maternal spot urine samples in a cohort of women enrolled in New York City between 1998 and 2002 and evaluated fat mass in their children using a Tanita scale between ages 4 and 9 years (173 children with 351 total observations). We estimated associations of standard deviation differences in natural log creatinine-standardized phenol biomarker concentrations with percent fat mass using linear mixed effects regression models. We did not observe associations of bisphenol A or triclosan with childhood percent fat mass. In unadjusted models, maternal urinary concentrations of 2,5-dichlorophenol were associated with greater percent fat mass and benzophenone-3 was associated with lower percent fat mass among children. After adjustment, phenol biomarkers were not associated with percent fat mass. However, the association between benzophenone-3 and percent fat mass was modified by child’s sex: benzophenone-3 concentrations were inversely associated with percent fat mass in girls (beta = −1.51, 95% CI = −3.06, 0.01) but not boys (beta = −0.20, 95% CI = −1.69, 1.26). Although we did not observe strong evidence that prenatal environmental phenols exposures influence the development of childhood adiposity, the potential antiadipogenic effect of benzophenone-3 in girls may warrant further investigation

Maternal hormonal contraceptive use and offspring overweight or obesity

OBJECTIVE: Experiments in animal models have shown a positive association between in utero exposure to pharmacologic sex hormones and offspring obesity. The developmental effects of such hormones on human obesity are unknown. METHODS: Using data from a large, prospective pregnancy cohort study (n=19,652), with linkage to a national prescription registry, we evaluated the association between use of hormonal contraceptives before and after conception (defined from dispensed prescription data and characterized by last date of use relative to conception, 12 – >4 months before (n=3,392), 4 – >1 months before (n=2,541), 1 – > 0 months before (n=2,997), and 0–12 weeks after (n=567)) in relation to offspring overweight or obesity at age 3 years. RESULTS: We observed a weak, inverse association between early pregnancy use of a combination oral contraceptive and offspring overweight or obesity at age 3 (adjusted OR: 0.75, 95% CI: 0.53, 1.08) and a positive, but imprecise, association with use of a progestin-only oral contraceptive in early pregnancy (adjusted OR: 1.26, 95% CI: 0.79, 2.02). In general, no association was observed between use of a hormonal contraceptive before conception and offspring overweight or obesity. A sensitivity analysis comparing combination oral contraceptive users in early pregnancy to other unplanned pregnancies without hormonal contraceptive use further strengthened the inverse association (adjusted OR: 0.70, 95% CI: 0.48, 1.02). Other sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the robustness of the associations observed given varying assumptions. CONCLUSION: Pharmacologic sex hormones in early pregnancy may be inversely or positively associated with offspring overweight or obesity at age 3, depending on the specific formulation used. The present study provides support for the potential for environmental sources of hormonally active agents to exert developmental effects