Chocolate lowers blood pressure of pregnant women

Eat your favorite chocolate and prevent hypertension during pregnancy.

 Preeclampsia - a condition during pregnancy characterized by high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine after 20 weeks’ gestational age - can lead to serious or life-threatening complications to both the mother and unborn child. It has been shown in two U.S. studies that consumption of chocolate by pregnant women resulted in lowered blood pressure.

 Women were interviewed at their first and third trimesters and immediately after childbirth. It was found that women who ate more than one serving per week of chocolate at their first and third trimesters had reduced risk of preeclampsia compared to those who ate one serving or none. On the other hand, those who consumed greater amounts of chocolate during the first trimester only had a lower chance of developing gestational hypertension.

 Researchers suggested that these beneficial effects could be due to the theobromine content of chocolate. However, they recommended that more studies be done to generate more conclusive findings.

Lying Still after Artificial Insemination Improves Pregnancy Rates

Researchers in the Netherlands investigated the relationship of post-insemination positioning to the chances of conception.

 A total of 391 couples, aged 18 to 43, participated in the study. Receiving up to three cycles of intrauterine insemination (IUI), the treatment group consisted of women who remained lying in A hospital bed for 15 minutes after the procedure, while the control group consisted of women who were asked to walk around.

 Results show that successful pregnancies in the treatment group were up by 50 percent. The pregnancy rate for the treatment group was higher at 27 percent compared to the control group at 17 percent.

 The researchers explained that immobilization prevented the leakage of sperm within the female genital tract and thereby increased the odds of pregnancy. They recommended that immediate immobilization be done as a standard procedure. However, factors such as the optimal length of immobilization and the use of fertility drugs and their relationship to the results warrants further investigation. They also noted that the overall pregnancy rate in this study was lower than that in the UK.

 If confirmed, immobilization may turn out to be economical for couples who may otherwise need the more expensive in vitro fertilization procedure.

Vaginal infections effectively cured by friendly bacteria

Scientists in Italy and Canada reported that “friendly” bacteria may change the way human infections are treated. Known as probiotics, some lactobacilli strains effectively hasten cure and prevent recurrence of infections.

Italian researchers found that genitourinary tract infections of women who were treated with oral antibiotics and oral probiotics resolved faster and had fewer recurrences than women who took oral antibiotics alone.

An investigation in Canada showed that the urogenital well-being of healthy women was maintained when probiotics were administered through the vaginal route. Urinary tract infection and yeast infections of the vagina were effectively treated and recurrences were prevented according to similar Canadian studies.

In women with no history of urinary tract infection for the past year, researchers say that taking probiotics for two months lowered the number of harmful bacteria and yeast counts in the vaginal canal.

It has been shown that after taking probiotics, the organisms travel and inhabit the vaginal microenvironment where they persist for about ten weeks. Scientists believe that some strains of lactobacilli stabilize the microbial milieu of the genital tract.

These findings suggest that probiotics may be effective in the treatment and recurrence of genital tract infections.