Maternal distress varies in prevalence rates and displays various complaints, signs and symptoms. Additionally, multiple factors and causes contribute to both women’s vulnerability and manifestation of maternal distress. Worldwide maternal distress prevalence rates are up to 41% and the evidence of short …

Objectives: Successful implementation of preconception and interconception care contributes to optimizing pregnancy outcomes. While interconception care to new mothers could potentially be provided by Preventive Child Health Care services, this care is currently not routinely available in the Netherlands. …

BACKGROUND: Most studies on multiple health risk behaviors among adolescents have cross-sectionally studied a limited number of health behaviors or determinants. PURPOSE: To examine the prevalence, longitudinal patterns and predictors of individual and multiple health risk behaviors among adolescents. …

In most countries, maternal and newborn care is fragmented and focused on identification and treatment of pathology that affects only the minority of women and babies. Recently, a framework for quality maternal and newborn care was developed, which encourages a system-level shift to provide skilled …

The use of growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) has become widespread. It is a potential contributor towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving hunger and reducing child mortality by two-thirds within 2015. Yet, GMP appears to be a prerequisite for good child health but several studies …

BACKGROUND: Prenatal healthcare is likely to prevent adverse outcomes, but an adequate review of utilization and its determinants is lacking. OBJECTIVE: To review systematically the evidence for the determinants of prenatal healthcare utilization in high-income countries. METHOD: Search of publications …

Promotion of a healthy pregnancy is a top priority of the health care policy in many European countries. Perinatal mortality is an important indicator of the success of this policy. Recently, it was shown that the Netherlands has relatively high perinatal death rates when compared to other European countries. …

Background Breech presentation occurs in 3 to 4% of all term pregnancies. External cephalic version (ECV) is proven effective to prevent vaginal breech deliveries and therefore it is recommended by clinical guidelines of the Royal Dutch Organisation for Midwives (KNOV) and the Dutch Society for Obstetrics …

OBJECTIVE: Pre-eclampsia is a complication of pregnancy characterized by systemic vascular dysfunction and pathological changes in placental arteries. Growing evidence of chronic infection as an aetiological factor in vascular diseases prompted us to study maternal periodontal disease in subjects with …