Friday Links – Pregnancy, GPS Inhalers, New TB Test

Good morning! Here’s why my backyard looks like now:

While some people are undoubtedly sick of winter, the girls are ecstatic that we moved here in time for the Denver Spring Blizzard ‘09. Here they are on the sledding hill yesterday afternoon:

Now they’re outside playing and attempting to build a snowman for the very first time in their lives. The snow in my yard is up to the Sidekick’s knees, and she’s an extremely tall first grader. It’ll be interesting to see how long they stay outside, though so far they seem surprisingly cold-tolerant for Florida kids.

Moving on. The links:

Stopping Asthma Meds During Pregnancy Can Up Prematurity Risk
Expectant asthma sufferers often worry that taking their medications during pregnancy will affect the health of their baby. This Montreal research shows stopping treatments can actually raise the risk of a premature birth and hypertension in the mother instead.

Researchers also discovered that carrying a girl fetus rather than a boy does not worsen asthma symptoms in the mother, a common myth.

New Use for GPS: Asthma Trigger Tracker
One scientist is planning to attach GPS device to volunteers’ inhalers to better track triggers, treatment, and – possibly – unknown causes. David Van Sickle, a former disease detective at the CDC, works with biomedical engineering students on this research and another project, a cheaper spirometer to help with asthma diagnosis in developing countries.

Faster New TB Test
One more for World TB Day:

Rather than the weeks-long standard test for tuberculosis diagnosis, this new test will take days or hours. Plus, it has the potential to identify drug-resistant TB strains faster. Faster diagnosis in both cases would help cut the spread of this highly, highly contagious lung disease.