Research on Maternal Health and Perinatal Outcome

Dear Colleagues,

In the recent decade, the profile of pregnant women around the world has changed significantly. The most important among the contributing factors are advanced maternal age, high prevalence of IVF pregnancies, including multiple ones, increased obesity rate and increasing proportion of pregnant women with serious accompanying medical disorders. New approaches for fetal and maternal monitoring have been developed. Advanced neonatal care has made possible the survival of extremely low birth weight neonates. The progress of modern genetics has allowed the elucidation of many prenatal, fetal and maternal problems.

At the same time, serious ethical issues have emerged. Fetal and neonatal outcomes are closely dependent on pregnancy complications. Remote outcomes for the offspring from pregnancies at risk are not to be ignored either. Among them are CP, intellectual disability, fetal reprogramming and predisposition later in life to medical disorders like early hypertension, obesity and diabetes.

Due to the mass migration, including women of reproductive age, maternal-fetal medicine specialists have faced new, unfamiliar medical and social problems, among them language barriers and cultural differences.

Thus, research in these areas is not only of theoretical and academic interest but can also have a significant impact on practices related to maternal, fetal and neonatal care and child development. 

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate the most recent advances related to the management of high-risk pregnancies as listed above. We shall consider contributions addressing prenatal screening and prevention of congenital anomalies, including genetic ones, screening for preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction and gestational diabetes, PAS disorders, management of pregnancies complicated by maternal medical disorders and neonatal outcome in high-risk pregnancies.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Topic 1. Prenatal screening for preeclampsia, preterm labor, gestational diabetes, genetic abnormalities, IUGR and placental abnormalities;
• Topic 2. Management of diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy, intrahepatic cholestasis, autoimmune thrombocytopenia and other hematological disorders, pregnancy after organ transplantation, cardiac and surgical problems during pregnancy, rare maternal conditions accompanying or induced by pregnancy.
• Topic 3. Infections and pregnancy–chorioamnionitis, UTI, Parvovirus B19, TORCH and HIV infections, puerperal infections. 
• Topic 4. Induction of labor and pregnancy termination, cesarean section and its immediate and remote complications, VBAC.
• Topic 5. Gynecological disorders in pregnancy, gynecological and other malignancies and pregnancy.
• Topic 6. Neonatal outcome in newborns from complicated pregnancies–short-term complications and remote consequences.
• Topic 7. Genetic counseling, invasive prenatal diagnosis, cell-free fetal DNA screening, multidisciplinary approach in pregnancies complicated by maternal and fetal disorders.
• Topic 8. Fetal monitoring in complicated pregnancies.
• Topic 9. Pregnancy and delivery complications in very young and older women, after ART, in groups with low socioeconomic status and in obesity.

Prof. Dr. Violeta G. Dimitrova
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• high-risk pregnancies
• obstetric complications of pregnancy/delivery
• prenatal screening and diagnosis
• clinical management of complicated pregnancies
• preterm labor
• gestational diabetes
• fetal growth restriction
• fetal monitoring
• delivery
• Cesarean section
• VBAC
• induction of labor
• placenta-mediated pregnancy complications
• rare medical disorders and pregnancy
• pregnancies after ART