Most US women face stroke risk

The time is right to start planning your first baby if you're already in your late 20s.Tick tock,the biological clock is ticking! Ever wondered about the right age to conceive? After 18,the sooner you conceive,the healthier it is.A woman is most fertile in her mid-20s.Her ability to conceive is high and pregnancy loss rate is relatively low.After age 30,fertility starts to decline gradually. Studies suggest that after 35,every additional year in the woman's age reduces the chances of a successful pregnancy by 9 per cent.So, if you are above 35 and are unable to conceive,do see a fertility specialist without wasting any time!

Pregnant women infected with HIV are more liekly to spread the virus to their children if they are carrying twins,according to a report in the journal AIDS.Laurent Mandelbrot of the University of Paris,and associates investigated mother-to-child spread of HIV in twins,compared with single twins,compared with single infants,born to HIV-infected mothers in the French Perinatal HIV Cohort.Before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy,an effective combination of anti-HIV drugs,the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate in twin pregnancies was two to three times that in singleton pregnancies.

Extra vitamin supplements can reduce the risk of having an underweight or undersized baby, and all pregnant women in developing countries should take them,researchers said.But the team, reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine ,said the supplements did not lower the likelihood of premature birth or losing the foetus before birth.The study,conducted in Tanzania,involved 8468 pregnant women who received iron and folic acid supplements. Half were given supplements containing vitamins C,E and a mix of B vitamins.The foetal death rate stayed around 5% and the rate of premature delivery was nearly 17% regardless of whether the mothers got the vitamins.

Canadian researchers have found that a hormone generated during pregnancy may be a potent tool in fighting multiple sclerosis,the crippling disease of the central nervous system, according to a new report.Taking note that MS often goes into remission in pregnant women, scientists at the university of calgary studied the way that the hormone prolactin, generated during pregnancy, acts to protect myelin, the all-important substance which coats nerve cells and helps conduct messages through the central nervous system. Studying mice, the scientists showed that prolactin helps the formation of new myelin, according toa summary of their research. In people with MS,myelin is attacked and damaged by the body's own immune system.