Search

Jonas F Ludvigsson,1 Johan Askling,1 Sven Cnattingius,1 Per Hall,1 Lars Klareskog,1 Olof Nyren,1 John A Baron,2 Henrik Toft Sørensen3 1Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden; 2University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 3Aarhus University, Aarhus, DenmarkCorrespondence: Jonas F Ludvigsson, Email jonasludvigsson@yahoo.com

Pauline Warselius,1 Sven Cnattingius,1 Jiong Li,2 Dang Wei,3 Unnur Anna Valdimarsdottir,4,5 Kyriaki Kosidou,3,6 Johan Reutfors,1 Jørn Olsen,2,7 Mogens Vestergaard,8,9 Carsten Obel,8,9 Krisztina D László31Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 2Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; 3Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 4Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 5Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland; 6Centre for Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Stockholm County’s Health Care District, Stockholm, Sweden; 7Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 8Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; 9Research Unit and Section for General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, DenmarkPurpose: Postpartum psychosis is a rare but severe complication following childbirth, with unknown etiology. This study investigated whether the death of a close family member — a source of severe stress — the year before or during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of psychotic illness in the postpartum period among women without and with a history of psychiatric disorder.Methods: We studied live births in Denmark during 1978–2008 and births in Sweden during 1973–2006 (n=5,246,978). Information on death of women’s relatives and partners and sociodemographic, health-, and pregnancy-related factors was obtained through linkage with nationwide registries.Results: The death of a close relative the year before or during pregnancy was not associated with psychotic illness during the first 90 days postpartum among women without (adjusted HR 1.02, 95% CI 0.76–1.37) or with a history of psychiatric disorder (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.74–1.25). Similarly, there was no association between bereavement and risk of postpartum psychosis according to the timing of the loss (the year before or during pregnancy), the relative’s cause of death (natural or unnatural), or the woman’s relationship to the deceased (parent/sibling or partner/older child).Conclusions: Death of a close relative, one of the most severe sources of stress, before or during pregnancy was not associated with postpartum psychosis. Therefore, these data do not support the hypothesis that severely stressful life events, such as bereavement around the time of pregnancy, are associated with postpartum psychosis.Keywords: postpartum, psychosis, bereavement, stress, pregnancy, cohort study

This article, titled "Accuracy and precision of sonographic fetal weight estimation in specific subgroups: important knowledge in clinical decision making," discusses the evaluation of the accuracy and precision of fetal weight estimation in specific subgroups. The study analyzed data from 31,521 singleton pregnancies in Sweden between 2014 and 2021. The results showed that there was a systematic underestimation of actual birthweight in severe small-for-gestational-age (SGA) fetuses, while actual birthweight was generally overestimated in severe large-for-gestational-age (LGA) fetuses. The study emphasizes the importance of understanding the systematic errors in fetal weight estimation for clinical decision making. [Extracted from the article]

This article, published in the journal "Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology," explores the potential of smaller than expected biometric measurements in the second trimester of pregnancy to predict the risk of stillbirth. The study analyzed data from 377,563 singleton pregnancies in Sweden and found that fetuses with short femur length (FL) in the second trimester had an increased risk of stillbirth. However, fetuses with normal FL but small biparietal diameter (BPD) and/or abdominal circumference (AC) did not show an increased risk. The researchers suggest that short FL in the second trimester may be a marker for early placental dysfunction, particularly when accompanied by small AC. Further research is needed to determine if this finding warrants increased fetal growth surveillance. [Extracted from the article]