ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To determine obstetric and perinatal outcome of planned home deliveries in Israel. METHODS: A retrospective study was performed including planned home deliveries in Israel between the years 2003 and 2007. RESULTS: Data regarding 1749 planned home deliveries was retrieved. Of these, 1594 (91.1%) were managed successfully. The rate of cesarean deliveries was 3.3% and the rate of instrumental deliveries was 1.0%. No cases of maternal mortality were noted. However, one patient was hospitalized for more than 5 days due to cesarean complications. One case of sudden infant death syndrome occurred 30 hours after home delivery. CONCLUSION: With proper selection of low risk parturients, planned home deliveries are basically associated with favorable outcomes. Further prospective studies should substantiate our results in order to provide clear indications for home deliveries.
Subject(s)
Home Childbirth/statistics & numerical data , Cesarean Section/adverse effects , Cesarean Section/statistics & numerical data , Female , Hospitalization , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Israel , Patient Care Planning , Pregnancy , Retrospective StudiesABSTRACT
A device that maintains steady fixation while plotting the visual field of an eye with a large central defect is presented. The device is composed of multiple adjacent pinhole tubes mounted on an eye shield and placed in front of the seeing fellow eye. The device constricts the visual field of the fixating nontested eye to preserve only the central 3 degrees, thus not interfering with the visual field of the tested eye. We tested 3 healthy volunteers with simulated visual field defects and more than 100 patients with unilateral loss of central vision. The use of this device allowed us to plot visual field defects with clear-cut borders while no meaningful results could be obtained without it. We found this device to be efficient, simple to use, and suitable for all varieties of perimetry.
