Embryo Project Encyclopedia Articles

John Chassar Moir lived in Scotland during the twentieth century and helped develop techniques to improve the health of pregnant women. Moir helped to discover compounds that doctors could administer to women after childbirth to prevent life-threatening blood loss. Those compounds included the ergot alkaloid called ergometrine, also called ergonovine, and d-lysergic acid beta-propanolamide. Moir tested ergometrine in postpartum patients and documented that it helped prevent or manage postpartum hemorrhage in women. Moir also developed methods to treat tears between the bladder and the vagina, called vesico-vaginal fistulas, that occur due to complications of childbirth, and that cause urinary incontinence in women who have them.

In the 1950s and 1960s, researchers Leon Chesley, John Annitto, and Robert Cosgrove investigated the possible familial factor for the conditions of preeclampsia and eclampsia in pregnant women. Preeclampsia and eclampsia, which are related to high blood pressure, have unknown causes and affect at least five percent of all pregnancies. The researchers, who worked at Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey, used hospital patient records to find and reexamine women who had eclampsia at the hospital, as well as their daughters, sisters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters. Chesley and colleagues found that the daughters and granddaughters of eclamptic women were more likely than the female offspring of non-eclamptic women to have preeclampsia and eclampsia in their own pregnancies, and especially in their first pregnancies. The study provided evidence that the disorders are inherited, enabling physicians to better monitor pregnancies in women who have a known family history for preeclampsia and eclampsia.

Leon Chesley studied hypertension, or high blood pressure, in pregnant women during the mid-twentieth century. Chesley studied preeclampsia and eclampsia, two hypertensive disorders found in approximately five percent of all US pregnancies. In New Jersey and New York, Chesley devoted over forty years to researching preeclampsia and eclampsia. Chesley conducted several long-term studies using the same group of women beginning from their pregnancies. Chesley’s multi-decade research led to more accurate diagnosis of preeclampsia and eclampsia in pregnant women and significantly reduced the mortality of pregnant women due to hypertensive diseases.

The Martius flap procedure is a surgical procedure used to treat obstetric fistulas in women. Heinrich Martius developed the procedure in twentieth century Germany to treat women with urinary incontinence caused by stress, and later doctors used it to repair obstetric fistulas. Fistulas occur in pregnant women when a hole is torn between the vagina and the urinary tract (called vesicovaginal) or the vagina and the rectum (called rectovaginal). The hole, or fistula, occurs in the tissue separating two organs and therefore obstetric fistulas result in either urinary or fecal incontinence. Fistulas can occur due to surgery, injury, or chemotherapy, but they most commonly occur in pregnant women who experience prolonged labor and do not have adequate access to obstetric care. As a result of the Martius flap procedure, patients regain functional use of their vaginas without continued urinary or fecal incontinence.

Leon Chesley published Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy in 1978 to outline major and common complications that occur during pregnancy and manifest in abnormally high blood pressures in pregnant women. The book was published by Appleton-Century-Crofts in New York, New York. Chesley compiled his book as a tool for practicing obstetricians and teachers. The book focuses on preeclampsia and eclampsia, but it also describes other common and rare hypertensive diseases and disorders of pregnancy and discusses their histories, diagnoses, management plans, pathologies, and immediate and remote prognoses for mothers and fetuses. Doctors used the book and all subsequent editions to help diagnose and manage complications during pregnancy and to avoid deaths for pregnant women and fetuses.

Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is a nonprofit organization that began in 1974 as a joint endeavor by Reginald and Catherine Hamlin and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia promotes reproductive health in Ethiopia by raising awareness and implementing treatment and preventive services for women affected by obstetric fistulas. It also aims to restore the lives of women afflicted with obstetric fistulas in Ethiopia and eventually to eradicate the condition. Obstetric fistulas occur in pregnant women during labor when pressure placed on the pelvis by the fetus causes a hole, or fistula, to form between the pregnant woman's vagina and bladder (vesicovaginal fistula) or between the vagina and the rectum (rectovaginal fistula). Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is governed by a board of trustees which includes founding member Catherine Hamlin. By 2014, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia supported the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, five treatment centers across Ethiopia, a midwife school, and a long-term rehabilitation center for women impacted by obstetric fistula.