Relationship between vaginal microbiota and chorioamnionitis: A prospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the association between vaginal microbiota and chorioamnionitis and its predictive value. METHODS: Thirty pregnant women in their third trimester were prospectively recruited. The participants were categorized into three groups based on their clinical manifestations and placental pathology: the clinical chorioamnionitis group (IP group), the asymptomatic histological chorioamnionitis group (CP group), and the healthy control group (CN group). Basic data and medical history were collected from each participant. Vaginal samples were collected before delivery and analyzed using microbial diversity sequencing. RESULTS: No significant differences were observed in age, body mass index, and education among the groups (P > 0.05). However, the IP group exhibited higher rates of low birth weight (60 % vs 20 % vs 0 %, P = 0.008) and respiratory distress syndrome (50 % vs 20 % vs 0 %, P = 0.003) compared with the CP and CN groups. The Shannon index [2.09 (1.16-3.86) vs 0.84 (0.19-1.11) vs 0.44 (0.25-0.85), P = 0.009] and Simpson index [0.70 (0.41-0.81) vs 0.26 (0.04-0.39) vs 0.11 (0.05-0.29), P = 0.010] in the IP group were higher than those in the CN and CP groups. ß diversity analysis indicated that the microbial community structure differed among the three groups, with a 14.1 % variation associated with group differences (P = 0.002). At the genus level, the random forest model revealed that Lactobacillus, Dialister, Prevotella, Ligilactobacillus, and Anaerococcus had Gini indexes higher than 1. Further, linear discriminant analysis (LDA) demonstrated that the abundance of Lactobacillus crispatus in the IP group was lower than in the CN group (LDA >4.0, mean relative abundance 9.19 % vs 54.40 %, P = 0.031). The logistic regression analysis indicated that a decreased abundance of L. crispatus was associated with an increased risk of clinical chorioamnionitis. CONCLUSIONS: The reduction of L. crispatus and increasing trend of specific anaerobic groups are associated with the onset of chorioamnionitis, suggesting their potential value in chorioamnionitis identification. The vaginal microbiota could serve as a useful biomarker for predicting future disease and tailoring surveillance efforts. Additionally, it may present a viable target for developing prevention and therapeutic strategies.

Causal associations of Insomnia and postpartum depression: a two-sample mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND: Postpartum depression (PPD), a prevalent social-mental condition, impacts the mother and the newborn and several facets of their lives. It has been suggested that insomnia is related to both the occurrence and progression of PPD. However, because of lingering confounding and bias, it is impossible to determine the cause of this connection using observational analysis. In this study, we evaluate the causal importance of insomnia on postpartum depression using Mendelian randomization (MR). METHODS: Utilizing summary data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS), a two-sample MR study was conducted. A GWAS dataset of IEU study of the United Kingdom Biobank phenotypes comprising 462,341 people of European heritage yielded 38 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for insomnia. The PPD data were provided by the FinnGen project and comprised 7604 cases and 59,601 controls. Inverse variance weighting (IVW) was utilized for the primary MR analysis, with weighted median and MR-Egger as sensitivity analyses. RESULTS: As a result, we found that genetically predicted insomnia was positively associated with postpartum depression. The odds ratios (OR) of PPD were 1.849 (95% (confidence interval) CI 1.011-3.381; p = 0.046). CONCLUSION: For the first time, the causative role of sleeplessness for postpartum depression has been extensively evaluated in the current two-sample MR investigation. Our findings show that insomnia and PPD are related causally.

Cervical pessary for preventing preterm birth: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of cervical pessary in the prevention of preterm birth and its influence on pregnancy and maternal outcomes, so as to provide a clinical basis for cervical pessary to prevent premature delivery. METHODS: The databases of PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI, WanFang Data, etc, were used to search for the eligible articles. The relevant data were abstracted by two independent reviewers and performed with Stata 12.0. RESULTS: Pregnancy Result: the PTB rates of pessary and control group before 28, 32, 34, and 37 weeks were analyzed and the combined RR (95%CI) values were 0.78 (0.46, 1.31), 0.92 (0.67, 1.28), 0.74 (0.49, 1.13), and 0.79 (0.54, 1.15). Compared with the control group, the utilization rate of tocolytic and corticosteroids was decreased 21% (RR = 0.79, 95%CI = 0.66-0.94) and 18% (RR = 0.82, 95%CI = 0.70-0.96). The risk of PROM and the difference was not statistically significant (p > .05). Subgroup analysis showed that there was no significant difference on the PTB rate subgroup and twins subgroup during 28 and 34 weeks (p > .05). The results showed that there was no significant difference on neonatal weight <1500 g and <2500 g (p > .05). Three articles on the average gestational age were included in the cervical length <25 mm. The deepen analysis on the relationship between gestational weeks and neonatal showed that: the risk of neonatal sepsis was reduced by 55% (RR = 0.45, 95% = 0.22 - 0.93); RDS and intraventricular hemorrhage are no significant difference on pessary and control group. The neonatal results were analyzed by subgroup analysis of singletons and twins, and there was no significant difference between two groups (p > .05). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with expectant management, pessary could prolong pregnancy and reduce the rate of tocolysis and corticosteroids. More registered trials are ongoing which may substantially change our results.

Interaction of parental KIR and fetal HLA-C genotypes with the risk of preeclampsia.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to investigate whether certain combination of maternal killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) and fetal human leukocyte antigen-C (HLA-C) is risk for preeclampsia in the Chinese Han population. METHODS: A case-control study was conducted in 47 pregnant women with preeclampsia and 54 normal pregnant women. Twelve KIR genes were genotyped by PCR-sequence-specific primer in mothers. High-resolution HLA-C genotyping was performed in couples and fetuses by a routine sequencing-based typing method. RESULTS: The frequency of KIR2DS1 was decreased (p = 0.028) and AA genotype was increased (p = 0.017) in preeclampsia compared with controls. More women with KIR AA genotype have fewer C2 genes than their fetuses in preeclampsia than controls. CONCLUSION: Women with KIR AA genotype and fewer C2 genes than their fetuses were at risk for preeclampsia in the Chinese Han population, supporting that maternal-fetal KIR-HLA-C interaction plays an important role in preeclampsia development.

Quantification of maternal serum cell-free fetal DNA in early-onset preeclampsia.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the increased serum cell-free fetal DNA (cffDNA) level of gravidas developed into early-onset preeclampsia (EOPE) subsequently in the early second trimesters is related to prenatal screening markers. Serum was collected from 1011 gravidas. The level of cffDNA and prenatal screening markers were analyzed in 20 cases with EOPE and 20 controls. All fetuses were male. The maternal serum cffDNA level was assessed by amplification of the Y chromosome specific gene. Correlations between the variables were examined. (Logged) cffDNA in EOPE (median, 3.08; interquartile range, 2.93-3.68) was higher than controls (median, 1.79; interquartile range, 1.46-2.53). The increased level of (logged) cffDNA was correlated significantly with the increased human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) level (r = 0.628, p < 0.001). Significant reciprocal correlations between cffDNA and babies' birth weight as well as gestation weeks at delivery were noted (r = -0.516, p = 0.001; r = -0.623, p < 0.001, respectively). The sensitivity and specificity of cffDNA to discriminate between the EOPE cases and the controls were 90% and 85%, respectively. CffDNA is a potential marker for EOPE, which had a significant reciprocal correlation with babies' birth weight and gestation weeks at delivery. Moreover, it may help in indicating the underlying hypoxic condition in the placenta.