Talk:Pregnancy

Complications and management of normal pregnancy

Complications of pregnancy are a critical issue: they are, for example, what differentiates the realm of doctors and midwives in many countries. Whether or not a pregnancy is regarded as complicated affects maternity care in many ways, in fact. There was a section (and there's a separate article) on complications that basically includes any and all symptoms arising from normal physiological changes of an uncomplicated pregnancy as complications. By this way of approaching pregnancy, there would be no such thing as a normal uncomplicated pregnancy. In addition, there is too little information, and there are key gaps. So I have begun the process of separating them out, using standard clinical practice guidelines to guide the separation. I've put this section under management, and have begun the process of filling this out based on reliable sources, although it is far from complete. The list of discomforts/symptoms in uncomplicated pregnancies is, I think, now complete. But the list of important actual complications of pregnancy is not (I have just removed the ones added to discomforts). Hildabast (talk) 19:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this clarification in the article. It will need additional work, but it's a good start. Mikael Häggström (talk) 14:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Legal viability

I'm looking at this edit, which adds a lot of detail about legal fetal viability.

Previous	Current
The age of fetal viability has been receding because of continued medical progress. Whereas it used to be 28 weeks, it has been brought back to as early as 23, or even 22 weeks in some countries.	The stage of pregnancy defined as the beginning of legal fetal viability varies around the world. It sometimes incorporates weight as well as gestational age. It ranges from 16 weeks in Norway, to 20 weeks in the US and Australia, 24 weeks in the UK and 26 weeks in Italy and Spain.

This strikes me as too much detail, and also as being kind of a weird focus. It's reasonable, in discussing the duration of pregnancies and what counts as preterm or full term, to provide some information about preterm births and the likelihood of survival. People probably want to know this: what's the median age at which a preterm baby will survive in a good hospital, and maybe what's the earliest that ever survived. But what we've got now is essentially an outline of the legal fictions imposed by courts and legislatures to regulate abortions and sometimes crimes (if you murder a pregnant woman, did you also murder the baby?). I've never heard of a 16-week-old fetus surviving, no matter what the Norwegian government says. I don't think that we need this much detail here, or anything about legal status. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a bit of a misleading comparison, because there was also a very large table previously, that had numerous inaccuracies and other problems. Overall, the amount of space devoted to this subject is now less - but it's accurate and international, making the legal nature of it clear. It's a fundamental issue to understanding medical perinatal terminology too, as what is a fetal death and so on varies accordingly. There is a huge amount of work that needs doing on this article: whether it's too much detail will be more clear later down the line when the article is more complete. Hildabast (talk) 00:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that I've ever seen a table on fetal viability. Are you sure it was in this article?

And my point is that whether or not your preterm baby is likely to live or die is not something of a "legal nature". Could we please talk in this article about actual, real, scientific, biological fetal viability, and not focus on some legal concept? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Duration

This edit adds information that I think is interesting, but I wonder whether it's UNDUE to emphasize a single primary-source study.

Previous

Current

There is a standard deviation of 8–9 days surrounding due dates calculated with even the most accurate methods. This means that fewer than 5 percent of births occur on the day of being 40 weeks of gestational age; 50 percent of births are within a week of this duration, and about 80 percent are within 2 weeks. It is much more useful and accurate, therefore, to consider a range of due dates, rather than one specific day, with some online due date calculators providing this information. Recent research shows, however, that while the average length from ovulation to birth is 268 days, gestation varies naturally by as much as 37 days.

There is a standard deviation of 8–9 days surrounding due dates calculated with even the most accurate methods. This means that fewer than 5 percent of births occur on the day of being 40 weeks of gestational age; 50 percent of births are within a week of this duration, and about 80 percent are within 2 weeks. However, new research published in 2013 in the journal Human Reproduction suggests that the natural length of pregnancies can vary by as much as 37 days. By analyzing women's urine for the presence of three hormones associated with the onset of pregnancy, the researchers say that they were able to pinpoint the precise point at which a woman ovulates and a fertilized embryo implants in the womb. They followed 125 pregnancies and found that the average time from ovulation to birth was 268 days (38 weeks and two days). The authors of the research say it's too early to make any clinical recommendations, but did conclude they "think the best that can be said is that natural variability may be greater than we have previously thought, and if that is true, clinicians may want to keep that in mind when trying to decide whether to intervene in a pregnancy."

They both have the same sources. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Pictures

It is totally inappropriate to put images of naked women on this site that can be accessed by children and teenagers, not to mention of any country. Please remove them. Same with the pictures of the woman in lingerie. There is absolutely no scientific purpose in displaying these pictures. I assure you (as a medical doctor) that they are not useful for educative purposes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tewfik5 (talk • contribs) 23:59, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Tewfik5. See WP:NOT CENSORED and WP:Offensive material. Going by that policy and that guideline, how do you justify the removal of these images? The side-by-side image in the Physiology section is educational and its omission would cause the article to be less informative. The ones in the Second trimester section are also educational and their omission also seemingly would cause the article to be less informative. As seen in those links, there are only two nudity images in this article. And I would state that the woman you describe as wearing lingerie is simply wearing plain underwear. People too often make breasts a sexual matter, when first and foremost (at least biologically-speaking) they are means to feed babies. Flyer22 (talk) 00:15, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

And remember to sign your username at the end of the comments you make on Wikipedia talk pages. All you have to do to sign your username is simply type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~. A bot signed your username for you above. Flyer22 (talk) 00:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

The naked images used to be in the lead. What we have now is a compromise. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)