New Mums 'Abandoned' During Labour

One in three new mothers is left alone during or just after labour because maternity services are overstretched, according to a survey.

The poll of 3,500 mums found almost half (43%) said they did not have access to a midwife after giving birth.

More than a third (35%) of those questioned by The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and parenting website Netmums.com said they had been abandoned during or after labour at a time when they felt worried.

Sally Russell, co-founder of Netmums.com, said: "This survey's results should demonstrate to the Government just how stretched maternity services are.

"It shows that our members want, need and deserve one-to-one care from midwives but they are not getting this and are left alone and feeling abandoned during labour, and especially in the vital post-natal period."

    All women can expect individual support from a midwife, supported by a wider maternity team, throughout her labour and birth.

Health Minister Ann Keen

One mother said of her labour: "There were too many people on and off shifts.

"There was no continuity of care, therefore no-one was able to make sound decisions.

"I (had) seven different midwives involved just during labour. I ended up having an emergency Caesarean section."

In 2007, the Government said all women in England should be supported by a midwife they know and trust throughout their pregnancy and after birth.

Ministers promised that "by the end of 2009" women would be able to choose where they give birth and have better continuity of midwifery care.

But the survey found only 68% of women were offered a choice of where to give birth.

Baby buggy

Some mothers felt abandoned

There were some positive responses in the research, including 83% of women saying they had the name and telephone number of a midwife they could contact if they were worried.

And 72% said they had their first appointment with a midwife as soon as they wanted it.

RCM general secretary Cathy Warwick said she was pleased some aspects of maternity services were rated highly but that overall the results painted a "worrying and disturbing picture".

Reacting to the survey, Health Minister Ann Keen said: "There has been record investment in the NHS in recent years including an additional £330m for maternity services.

"All women can expect individual support from a midwife, supported by a wider maternity team, throughout her labour and birth."

NEWS BY:http://news.sky.com

Susan Boyle plans for musical

Susan Boyle plans to star in a musical about her life.

The Scottish singing sensation, who shot to worldwide fame after appearing on UK TV talent show Britain's Got Talent in 2009, is in talks to have her meteoric rise to fame chronicled in a new stage production and even hopes to take the lead role in the show.

She said: "I'm definitely going to be on stage. I'd rather that than having to sit watching people up there looking like me.

"I want to be doing the music parts, so I'll be coming in and out of the show. I'm looking forward to doing some live work. It'll be really nice to see so many of the people who have supported me in person."

Producers are reportedly planning to take the show - which will chronicle the 49-year-old star's modest upbringing in Blackburn, West Lothian, her period living alone with her cat and her rise to stardom - on a huge UK tour late next year as they believe it will be extremely popular.

A source told The Sun newspaper: "Susan has incredibly loyal fans. People will be travelling from all over the world to see her perform in her own musical.

"I wouldn't be surprised if some of them book tickets to watch it five nights in a row."

NEWS BY:http://tvnz.co.nz/entertainment-news

Genetic Data Nix Folate Role in Heart Disease

The final nail may have been placed in the coffin of homocysteine-lowering therapy as a preventive measure for coronary heart disease.

The overall result from large, unpublished datasets shows lifelong moderate homocysteine elevation has little or no effect on coronary heart disease.

A comprehensive analysis -- including published and unpublished research that involved more than 236,000 participants -- suggests that even lifelong exposure to elevated homocysteine "has little or no effect," according to Robert Clarke, MD, of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University of Oxford, in Oxford, England, and colleagues.

The key finding is that, in several large unpublished datasets, genetic variation that increases or decreases natural homocysteine levels did not significantly affect the risk of coronary heart disease, Clarke and colleagues reported online in PLoS Medicine.

That was coupled with a null effect in an updated meta-analysis of 10 clinical trials testing the effect of folic acid, a homocysteine-lowering compound.

Taken together, that evidence suggests that a significant but modest benefit of lower homocysteine in an updated meta-analysis of 86 published case-control studies was an "artifact of publication bias," the researchers argued.

Clarke and colleagues noted that a common genetic variant -- named C677T -- in the methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase gene (MTHFR) markedly affects homocysteine levels.

Specifically, people with the TT genotype (individuals in whom both copies of the MTHFR gene have the nucleotide thymine at position 677) of the C677T polymorphism have natural levels that are about 20% higher than those with the CC variant. The CT variant has an effect that is intermediate but closer to CC than TT.

That suggests the possibility of a natural "Mendelian" experiment, and luckily the increasing use of large scale-genomics analysis has led to the creation of 19 large datasets -- with a total of more than 100,000 participants -- in which variation in the MTHFR gene was analyzed, although not as a primary focus.

Clarke and colleagues designated those studies as "unpublished" because odds ratios for coronary heart disease were not the primary aim and have not been reported. The studies had a total of 48,175 coronary heart disease cases and 67,961 controls.

If the associations seen in the earlier case-control studies were causal, the researchers argued, the 20% higher homocysteine in those with the TT variant should imply about an 8% increase in coronary heart disease risk, compared with CC carriers.

But a meta-analysis of the effect of the TT variant in the 19 studies showed a non-significant odds ratio of 1.02, with a 95% confidence interval from 0.98 to 1.07, they reported.

Even in the sub-population of participants who had not been given folate supplements in food, where the effect of the TT variant might be expected to be stronger, it remained non-significant, with an odds ratio of 1.01.

On the other hand, Clarke and colleagues reported, the updated analysis of the 86 biochemical studies -- with 28,617 cases and 41,857 controls -- suggested that having the TT variant increased the risk of coronary heart disease by 15% (odds ratio 1.15, 95% CI from 1.09 to 1.21).

The results of the two analyses are "discrepant," the researchers noted, and the discrepancy "is too extreme to be plausibly dismissed as a chance finding."

Instead, they argued for a "substantial" effect of publication bias.

To bolster the argument, they noted that their analysis of the 10 intervention studies, with a total of more than 50,000 participants, found that lowering homocysteine for at least five years had no significant effect on the risk of coronary heart disease. The odds ratio was 1.02 (95% CI from 0.96 to 1.08).

"Both the genetic studies and the trials argue against the use of (homocysteine-lowering agents) as a means of reducing coronary heart disease risk," they concluded.

NEWS BY:http://www.medpagetoday.com