Early Pregnancy Development and Obstetric Outcome

Abstract

The following research objectives were defined: 1. To determine an unambiguous Dutch terminology to describe events in early pregnancy (Chapter 1.2) 2. To explore whether determining the due date by the last period is influenced by preference for certain dates, and whether this is associated with adverse obstetric and neonatal outcome (Chapter 2.1). To evaluate the effect of nonvisualized early pregnancy losses (biochemical pregnancy losses and failed pregnancies of unknown location) on the chance of live birth in the subsequent pregnancy (Chapter 2.2). To investigate whether events and complications in early pregnancy are associated with adverse obstetric and neonatal outcome (Chapter 2.3). 3. To investigate whether the use of a 3 dimensional Virtual Reality (VR) system to create enhanced 3 dimensional rendering images of 3 dimensional dataset created by a confocal laser scanning microscopy of early chorionic villous vascularization is consistent and useful to perform morphometric measurements and to describe the spatial arrangement of the cords and vessels in relation to the vasculosyncytial membrane (Chapter 3.1). To determine the effect of smoking on the chorionic villous vascularization in first trimester of pregnancy using a 3 dimensional VR system (Chapter 3.2). 4. To study whether idiopathic second trimester fetal loss (Chapter 4.1), preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction (Chapter 4.2) are associated with an underdeveloped chorionic villous vascularization.