Prenatal Playful-Educational Activities, Psycho-Emotional Well-Being of Pregnant Women and Perinatal Outcomes: A Pilot Study

Objective: To present the results of a pilot study that evaluated the psycho-emotional well-being, and the perinatal results of a group of 44 women who attended a prenatal program that incorporates playful and educational activities, in a Child Development Center in Durango. Mexico. Methods: A group of 44 women with informed consent participated for 28 weeks in the prenatal program. The condition of psycho-emotional well-being during the first and third trimesters and the perinatal results were analyzed with validated instruments. Physiological stress was also assessed with salivary cortisol in the same trimesters. Results: More than 90% of the women evaluated their psycho-emotional condition as satisfactory and very satisfactory. The evaluation of anxiety in its Trait/State modalities placed the participants in the category of mild and moderate. Salivary cortisol showed values within a normal range. Perinatal results showed that 98% of deliveries were at term, 93% of newborns weighed more than 2500 grams, and 98% of newborns had an APGAR score of 9 at 5 minutes. Conclusion: The results suggest that the incorporation of playful and educational actions to prenatal surveillance positively influenced the biopsychosocial condition of the pregnant woman and favorable perinatal outcomes.

The Social Conditions in the Genesis of Preeclampsia

This article highlights the importance of preeclampsia as a global public health problem and the lack of a satisfactory model to explain its genesis. Scientific advances relevant to the placental pathophysiology, which have resulted in a deeper understanding of the immunological mechanisms associated to preeclampsia and have been translated into better treatment options, are also highlighted, although to date these approaches cannot explain the origin of the disease. From a theoretical approach underpinned by the concepts related to the social determinants of the health, and specifically from current psychosocial epidemiology, an alternative approach that gives account for the genesis of preeclampsia is proposed. The proposal is based in the scientific literature as well as in the work of the authors;it takes as references unfavorable socioeconomic and psychosocial conditions in pregnant women, linking these conditions to a series of failed adaptive biological processes closely related to an ineffective allostatic response by the body, which ultimately determines the occurrence of the disease.