A third of girls and young women with benign ovarian neoplasms ages 2 to 21 underwent oophorectomy or salpingo-oophorectomy, researchers reported in Pediatrics. The analysis of 819 cases of ovarian neoplasms found that 11% were malignant.

Syncope during the first trimester of pregnancy was associated with an 18.3% rate of preterm birth compared with 15% of pregnancies without syncope, and pregnancies with multiple syncope episodes had a rate of congenital anomalies of 4.9% vs. 2.9% for pregnancies without syncope. The study of data for 481,930 pregnancies, including 4,667 with reports of syncope, was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers evaluated 2011 to 2015 data involving 33,502 adolescents and found that those with pregestational diabetes were at a higher risk of cesarean delivery, high offspring birth weight, preeclampsia and preterm delivery than adolescents without diabetes. The findings in Pediatric Diabetes also revealed a further increase in pregnancy-related risks among those with diabetes who experienced diabetes complications, including end-stage organ damage or diabetic ketoacidosis.

There is a lack of consensus among rheumatologists on when to suspend the use of drugs for inflammatory arthritis by women with unplanned pregnancies and how to handle such cases generally, researchers wrote in BMC Rheumatology. There was agreement among many that it was safe to continue using azathioprine, hydroxychloroquine and sulfasalazine during pregnancy.

The FDA is warning about the risk of miscarriage or harm in fetal development in pregnant women and women who could become pregnant when using products, such as dietary supplements, that contain vinpocetine. The agency encourages firms that market vinpocetine-containing products to ensure there are label warnings about the issue.

There may be a quantitative limit to human endurance and that limit is similar to the energy expended by pregnant women, according to a study published in Science Advances. Researchers measured the energy expenditure of elite endurance athletes and found that it plateaus when it nears 2.5 times the athletes' basal metabolic rate, then they compared that to the energy expended by women during pregnancy.

A New York regulation is to go into effect by the end of summer requiring health insurers in the state to cover screenings for maternal depression by adult and pediatric primary care providers. Health plans that include the child but not the mother also will be required to pay for the screenings.

A University of Utah Health study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology found that 26% of pregnancy-related deaths in Utah were drug-induced and that the postpartum period is the most critical time for women who have substance abuse issues. The researchers noted less than half of women in the state receive social worker consultations or mental health services.

A UNICEF maternal health report said more than 800 women worldwide die each day from pregnancy-related complications. Millions of families in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean spend more than 40% of their non-food money on maternal health each year, and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said the cost of childbirth can be catastrophic and even fatal for families.

Accenture's Digital Health Tech Vision report, based on a survey of 221 health care executives from the US and Canada, found that 89% reported trying at least one emerging technology such as artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, quantum computing and extended reality, and 38% have implemented extended reality within their organizations. Sixty-eight percent of respondents noted that their organizations could experience an "extensive" or "transformative" effect from using a combination of the technologies over the next three years.

The number of consumers who want to engage with health care providers using digital methods is increasing, and practices can use the technology to improve patient engagement, write Matt Henry and Susan Kanvik, health care consultants with Point B. They recommend that practices should decide what their pain points are before finding the technology needed.