Prenatal diagnosis for women aged 37 years and over: to have or not to have

Forty percent of pregnant women aged 37 years and over do not have prenatal diagnosis despite being eligible for a free test. The present study aimed to determine how often, and which, untested women were making a choice about this, how many declined an offer and why. A questionnaire was given to untested women, aged 37 years and over, at no less than 24 weeks gestation. A total of 375 (81.5%) women declined, 72 (16%) were not offered a test and 13 presented too late antenatally. There was a three-fold increased likelihood (OR 3.10 95% CI 1.44, 6.65) of no offer for urban non-English speaking background women, compared with the reference group (metropolitan, English speaking). Unpartnered women were also significantly less likely to receive an offer (OR 3.18, 95% CI 1.19, 8.46). Risk to the baby was the main reason for declining. When offered non-invasive prenatal screening, most decliners of prenatal diagnosis accepted, even those who declined because they were opposed to abortion. We estimate that overall 33% of older pregnant women were being offered and declining amniocentesis and/or chorion villus sampling (CVS). Only 6% were not offered a test, but this small proportion is over-represented by minority groups who must be given equal opportunity to make this choice. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Physiological and Biochemical Effects of Atmospheric Oxidants on Plants

Photochemically produced oxidants in the atmosphere cause injury to plants primarily through inhibition of basic metabolic processes. Plants vary in their response to the oxidants and this variation must be dependent in part on the variation in metabolic activity with age or environmental conditions for growth, to a large degree not understood. Data are presented in this paper to show: (1) The changes in permeability of leaf tissue to exogenous substrate and in catabolic utilization of this substrate after exposure of plants to ozone but before visible symptoms appear; (2) The change in leaf carbohydrates as a result of exposure to ozone; (3) The protective effect of red light (700 mμ) during exposure of bean plants to peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN); (4) The correlation of sulfhydryl (SH) content in bean leaf tissue with age of plants and light regime; and (5) Effect of light regime and age of plants on incorporation of C¹⁴ from C¹⁴-PAN by bean leaf tissue.     

Maternity health care professionals' views and experiences of fetal genomic uncertainty: A review

The field of prenatal screening and diagnosis for fetal anomalies has been marked by a rapid succession of technological advances, including most notably, chromosomal microarray analysis, and next generation sequencing. Despite the diagnostic advantages of these technologies, their incorporation into prenatal testing has created additional challenges of revealing genomic variants of unknown or uncertain significance, and secondary findings. While detailed posttest counseling about uncertain variants is best performed by medical geneticists, many of the screening and diagnostic tests that lead to this information are actually ordered by general maternity health care professionals (HCPs), such as obstetricians, midwives, and family physicians. Maternity HCPs support pregnant women through to the conclusion of their pregnancy and the postpartum period, and thus are close observers of the psychosocial impart of fetal genomic uncertainty on women and their families. While there have been many studies exploring the handling of genomic uncertainty by genetics HCPs, there has been relatively less attention paid to maternity HCPs without speciality training in genetics. This review explores the current literature surrounding nongenetic maternity HCPs' views and experiences of genomic uncertainty and returning uncertain results in the prenatal setting.     

A longitudinal study of the relationship between career management and organizational commitment among graduates in the first ten years at work

This paper reports the findings of a two‐wave longitudinal study investigating relationships between organizational and individual career management activities and organizational commitment in the early years of graduate careers. Several hypotheses are tested and receive mixed support. High organizational commitment predicts the practice of career management activities by graduates to further their career within the organization while low commitment is closely associated with behaviour aimed at furthering the career outside the organization. Graduates who manage their own careers also receive more career management help from their employer. This suggests that there may be the potential for employers to create a ‘virtuous circle’ of career management in which individual and organizational activities complement each other. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.