METHODS: Over a 3-year period a group of pregnant women with cardiac disease was followed until 6 weeks postpartum. Twenty women with pulmonary hypertension were compared with 20 controls without pulmonary hypertension with particular reference to maternal and fetal outcome. Analysis of data was carried out using Fisher's exact test and Student's t-test.
RESULTS: Except for Eisenmenger's syndrome, there were no differences in maternal morbidity and mortality between the two groups. There were more low birth weight babies but no significant differences in premature delivery rate, mode of delivery or perinatal mortality.
CONCLUSION: Except for Eisenmenger's syndrome, coexisting pulmonary hypertension complicating cardiac disease in pregnancy generally has a favorable outcome for both mother and fetus.
METHODS: The setting was the University of Kuala Lumpur. Thirty-four Malay, 35 Chinese and 34 Indian normal pregnant middle-class women were studied longitudinally by monthly ultrasound scans for 18 to 38 weeks of gestation. The data were subjected to regression analysis; the quadratic curve was found to be the most adequate. Dummy variables were used to determine any effects by gender, parity as well as ethnicity on the length of limb growth. There was no difference in birth weights of the three ethnic groups studied, nor in gender or parity.
RESULTS: There were found to be significant differences in limb lengths of the Indians (longer) when compared with the Malays and Chinese. Parity seems to affect only Indians in whom the multiparous fetuses have shorter limb lengths than the primaparous. There appears to be no effect by gender.
CONCLUSION: There appear to be definite differences in growth of limb length between the different Malaysian ethnic groups and this should be taken into account when growth charts are used and when fetal weight formulas are calculated using limb lengths. The limitation of this study was that the numbers of subjects studied were small. Larger studies will be able to confirm or refute the findings.