80 Percent Of Cases Of Postnatal Depression Predicted By New Method

Worldwide, 13% of women who give birth suffer from postnatal depression, which causes a significant deterioration in a mother's quality of life and her ability to care for her baby. Now, Spanish researchers have developed a model to diagnose this illness with a predictive power of 80% - the best result to date for this kind of depression.



"Early diagnosis of postnatal depression would make it possible to intervene to prevent it from developing among women at risk", Salvador Tortajada, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), tells SINC.



The experts studied data on 1,397 Spanish women who gave birth between December 2003 and October 2004 in seven hospitals in Spain, and devised various models that can predict - with an 80% success rate - which mothers run the risk of developing depression during the first weeks after giving birth.



This study, which is the first of its kind in Spain and has been published recently in the journal Methods of Information in Medicine, gives the best results to date in terms of predicting this illness. "Now it needs clinical evaluation, and for psychiatrists to start to test it directly on patients in order to study the true potential of these tools", says Tortajada.



The researchers used artificial neuronal networks and extracted a series of risk factors highlighted in previous studies - the extent of social support for the mother, prior psychiatric problems in the family, emotional changes during the birth, neuroticism and polymorphisms in the serotonin transport gene (genes with high levels of expression lead to an increased risk of developing the illness).



They also discovered two protection factors that reduce the risk of depression - age (the older the woman the lower her chance of depression), and whether or not a woman has worked during pregnancy (which reduces the risk). The researcher points out that: "it can be seen that these factors are relevant in the neuronal networks, but not by using other statistical methods". The path is now clear for future studies to corroborate these findings.



However, many studies have shown that between 10 and 15% of women who give birth suffer from depression, normally between the second and third month after having given birth. This illness affects the patient's emotional and cognitive functions (in extreme cases leading to suicidal tendencies), and may have serious knock-on effects on the child's future development.



Source:
SINC


FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology

Obama's Call For 'Empathy' In Supreme Court Justice Reflects 'Understanding Of Judicial Role,' Opinion Piece Says

President Obama has said he wants his replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter to be "'someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract theory or footnote in a case book; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives,'" Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus writes in an opinion piece. Obama also has said that the "'quality of empathy'" is an "'essential ingredient for arriving at just decision and outcomes.'" According to Marcus, this call for a "quality of empathy" is a "red alert for conservatives," who fear Obama will appoint an "activist judge" who would rule based on partisan views. She notes that Steven Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern University and co-founder of the Federalist Society, said in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece before the election that Obama's "emphasis on empathy in essence requires the appointment of judges committed in advance to violating" a judge's oath to rule with equal justice to all people. According to Calabresi, Obama is advocating to "tear the blindfold off, so the judge can rule for the party he emphasizes with most."

Marcus writes that she also would "be on the barricades" if she thought Obama was "advocating for a pick-your-favorite-side approach." However, Obama's position "reflects a more thoughtful, more nuanced understanding of the judicial role," as opposed to Chief Justice John Roberts' analogy that likens a justice to a baseball umpire. Marcus continues, "Like its downscale cousin, the dictate that judges should 'interpret the law, not legislate from the bench,' the judge as umpire trope is fundamentally misleading," adding that if the correct conclusion "was always available to a judge who merely thinks hard enough about it, we could program computers to fulfill the judicial function." The most important Supreme Court cases require a judge to bring "life experiences" to the bench, as well as knowledge of the rule of the courts, and finally, "as Obama put it, 'a broader version of what America should be,'" Marcus says.

Marcus writes that Obama's "most controversial formulation of the empathy argument came in a 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood." Obama said, "The issues that come before the court are not sport. They're life and death. And we need somebody who's got ... the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old." Marcus writes that having the "'empathy to recognize' should not determine the outcome of a case, but it should inform the judge's approach," concluding that a justice's "blindfold is a useful metaphor for impartiality. It's not a fixed prescription for insensitivity, or for obliviousness to the real world swirling outside the arid confines of the courthouse" (Marcus, Washington Post, 5/6).


Reprinted with kind permission from nationalpartnership. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.


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UN Commission on Women Passes Economic Measure With Reproductive Rights Amendment

The 45-member... U.N. Commission on the Status of Women on Friday, which was the final day of a two-week U.N. meeting in New York, adopted a resolution -- originally proposed by the United States -- that calls for economic equality for women and includes an amendment mentioning "reproductive rights," Reuters reports. The commission adopted the resolution despite opposition to the amendment from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Ellen Sauerbrey. South African delegates proposed the reproductive rights-related amendment, which states that the "neglect of women's reproductive rights severely limits their opportunities in public and private life" (Leopold, Reuters, 3/12). Sauerbrey said that the United States intended the resolution to focus on entrepreneurship and expressed "disma[y]" that the resolution "was getting away from its original intent," the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports (Wadhams, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 3/11). She said that the amendment "is not acceptable to the United States," adding, "We worked very hard during the course of negotiations to arrive at language that was broad and was acceptable to most delegations" (Reuters, 3/12).

Earlier U.S. Objections
Earlier in the meeting, the commission unanimously approved a one-page declaration supporting the Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing after U.S. delegates agreed to drop an amendment that would have clarified that the platform does not include a right to abortion. The declaration asked the participating countries to reaffirm progress toward the Beijing platform, which stated that abortion should be safe in places where it is legal and that criminal charges should not be filed against any woman who undergoes an illegal abortion. The platform also stated that women have the right to "decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality ... free of coercion, discrimination and violence." Bush administration representatives at first said the United States would not sign the declaration because of concerns that the platform classified legal abortion as a human right and proposed an amendment that would reaffirm U.S. commitment to the platform and declaration "while reaffirming that they do not create any new international human rights and that they do not include the right to abortion." However, most member nations rejected even a "watered down" version of the U.S. amendment, and the declaration passed in its original form (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 3/7).


"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork/dailyreports/repro The Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report Highlights Issues In Various States

The following highlights recent news of state actions on women's health issues.

Abortion Regulations
Kansas: State lawmakers on Thursday failed by four votes to override Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' (D) veto of a measure (SB 528) that would have required physicians who perform late-term abortions to supply the state with data about women undergoing the procedure, the AP/Kansas City Star reports (AP/Kansas City Star, 5/25). The measure, which Sebelius vetoed last Friday, would have required physicians to submit to state health officials information detailing fetal abnormalities, the pregnant woman's health and the name of the physician who authorized the abortion (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 5/23). State lawmakers voted 23-12 to override Sebelius' veto, falling short of the required two-thirds majority of 27 votes, according to the Wichita Eagle (Klepper/Sullinger, Wichita Eagle, 5/26).

South Carolina: The state House on Thursday voted 81-18 to preliminarily approve a bill (S 1084) that would make it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus during the assault of a pregnant woman, the AP/Columbia State reports (AP/Columbia State, 5/25). The measure -- which the state Senate preliminarily approved in March -- would apply only to violent crimes and would exempt legal abortion procedures from prosecution. The legislation would allow prosecution for murder and attempted murder of fetuses regardless of intent or proof that the person causing injury to a pregnant woman knew she was pregnant. Prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty solely for crimes involving the fetus, according to the legislation. The bill would allow charges to be brought at any stage of fetal development (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 3/3). The state House on Friday did not read the bill for a third time (AP/Columbia State, 5/26).

Other Regulations
Connecticut: State Department of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Ralph Carpenter on Thursday said the department will stop issuing "Choose Life" license plates while the department and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) investigate whether the Children First Foundation is eligible to promote itself through license plates, the Hartford Courant reports. The state's DMV allows groups to promote themselves on specialty plates, and the department in 2003 gave approval to Children First for the "Choose Life" plates, which also list the group's Web site. Children First gives grants to pregnancy centers that do not offer abortions, as well as to programs that provide women a venue to give infants to hospitals and fire stations without being charged with a crime, according to Elizabeth Rex, the group's president. Blumenthal and a Democratic state lawmaker on Wednesday sent a letter to Carpenter saying that Children First has "negligible, if any, 'operations' in Connecticut, much less a base of operation in the state." Rex said that her group works on a small budget from members' homes, which should not preclude the group from being eligible for a plate. She added that she believes she can answer any of the state's questions (Lender, Hartford Courant, 5/26).
















"Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.