Maternal Deaths From Childbirth Still High

In a report titled “Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Maternity” the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) states that the number of mothers who died during pregnancy or childbirth remain largely unchanged. Over 99% of the estmated 536,000 worldwide maternal deaths in 2005 occurred in developing countries - half of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “One of the critical bottlenecks has always been access to highly skilled health workers required to deliver emergency obstetrical care, particularly caesarian sections,” Peter Salama UNICEF’s chief of health, told a news briefing. The leading causes of maternal death include hemorrhaging, infections, blood pressure problems, complications of abortions, obstructed labor, and HIV/AIDS.
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Heart Attacks Dip Day After Daylight Savings Time Ends

After looking at 20 years of records, Swedish researchers found that the number of heart attacks decreased the Monday after daylight savings time ended, possibly due to the extra hour of sleep most people get. Typically, most heart attacks occur on Mondays due to the increased stress load and activity of the new week. The researchers also noted that the number of heart attacks increased throughout the week after “springing forward” an hour. This may be due to the persistence of sleep disturbance following the reduction of sleep time, which may add to the stress load of the work week.

Interventional cardiology

Interventional cardiology is a branch of the medical specialty of cardiology that deals specifically with the catheter based treatment of structural heart diseases.
A large number of procedures can be performed on the heart by catheterization. This most commonly involves the insertion of a sheath into the femoral artery (but, in practice, any large peripheral artery or vein) and cannulating the heart under X-ray visualization (most commonly
fluoroscopy, a real-time x-ray).
Procedures performed by specialists in interventional cardiology:
Angioplasty (PTCA, Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty) - for coronary atherosclerosis
Valvuloplasty - dilation of narrowed cardiac valves (usually mitral, aortic or pulmonary)
Procedures for congenital heart disease - insertion of occluders for ventricular or atrial septal defects, occlusion of patent ductus arteriosus, angioplasty of great vessels
Emergency angioplasty and stenting of occluded coronary vessels in the setting of acute myocardial infarction
Coronary Thrombectomy - a procedure performed to remove thrombus (blood clot) from blood vessels.[1]
Invasive procedures of the heart to treat arrhythmias are performed by specialists in clinical cardiac electrophysiology
Surgery of the heart is done by the specialty of cardiothoracic surgery. Some interventional cardiology procedures are only performed when there is cardiothoracic surgery expertise in the hospital, in case of complications.