• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.548-554
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• 1999

Background : Asthma is the most common respiratory crisis encountered in clinical practice, occurring in up to 4% of all pregnancies. Pregnancy often appears to alter the course of asthma. But the mechanisms responsible for variable changes in the asthma course during pregnancy remain unknown. Poor control and exacerbations of asthma during pregnancy may result in serious maternal and fetal complications. To investigate the course of asthma during pregnancy in korean women, we did a retrograde study of 27 pregnant women who had been admitted to Korea University Hospital for asthma worsened. Method: Twenty seven pregnant women who had been visited to Korea University Hospital for asthma worsened were enrolled in our retrospective study. We reviewed medical recordings and interviewed patients with asthma. Results: Twenty seven pregnant women with asthma were evaluated, and 25 patients were enrolled to our study. Two patients experienced abortions at 6 weeks and 25 weeks gestation, respectively. The period of asthma worsened was commonly during weeks 20 to 28 of gestation. And all patients wosened were improved during the last 4 weeks of pregnancy. Twenty(80%) of 25 women whose asthma worsened during pregnancy reverted toward their prepregnancy status after delivery(p<0.002). The causes of asthma worsened during pregnancy are reduction or even complete cessaton of medication due to fears about its safety(40%), worsening after upper respiratory infection (28%), and unknown(32%). There were no adverse perinatal outcomes in 25 pregnant asthma subjects. Conclusions: A major problem of therapy for asthma during pregnancy is reduction or even complete cessation of medication due to fears of fetal effects. Therefore, maternal education and optimal clinical and pharmacologic management is necessary to mitigate maternal and fetal complications.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.165-169
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• 1989

Fetal cystic hygroma is a rare congenital malformation of the lymphatic system appearing as a single or multiloculated fluid-filled cavity, most often in the neck, A case of fetal nuchal cystic hygroma was diagnosed by ultrasonography at 22 weeks of gestation and the diagnosis was confirmed at autopsy. We present the case with a brief review of literature.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.182-227
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• 1998

Korean government decided to adopt an explicit population control policy in 1961 and from the following year the establishment and operation of the national family planning programme was included in each of the Five-Year Economic Development Plans that began in 1962. This policy was pursued in the understanding that without proper population control measures korea could not be able to achieve economic development. Korean national family planning programme is characterized by contraceptive target system through public health network with distribution of free contraceptives by family planning field workers and clinical contraceptive services such as IUD, vasectomy and tubaligation at designated clinics by the government. In addition, IE&C activities by the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea and programme evaluation and research by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs contributed to the development of the government programme. Between 1960 and mid 1980s the nation's total fertility rate was reduced from 6.0 to population replacement level of 2.1 and thereafter it has been maintained at 1.6 to 1.7 of below replacement level. With a short period of less than three decades fertility transition was completed in Korea. It is estimated that if the current level of below replacement fertility continues, the population in Korea stabilize at around 52.78 million people by the year 2028, and it will begin to decrease thereafter. Under this circumstances, the government adopted new directions and strategies of the population policy in June 1996, focused primarily on population quality and social welfare than on demographic arenas. In spite of over 80 percent of high contraceptive prevalence among married women, high incidence of induced abortions is maintained. Moreover, the prevalence of sex selective induced abortions using procedures to determine the sex of the fetus has resulted in an imbalance in the sex ratio at birth. In order to overcome those problems associated with reproductive health new policy for population quality control and health promotion programme should be highly strengthened in the future.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.49 no.10
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• pp.1073-1078
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• 2006

Purpose : This study was performed to assess how a fetal diagnosis of congenital heart disease affects parents, as regards pregnancy management and care of infants after birth. Methods : Database search to find out abnormal fetal echocardiography performed at Seoul National University Children's Hospital from July 1988 to June 2003 revealed 370 examinations. After excluding both arrhythmias without structural cardiac disease and multiple pregnancies, 299 pregnancies remained and this data formed the basis of this analysis. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records with special attention to pregnancy outcomes and also tried to find out factors influencing parental decisions on whether to continue or terminate pregnancy. Results : In this study, the mean gestation age at diagnosis was $28{\pm}6.0weeks$. The mean age of mothers was $30{\pm}3.9$ years old. Younger gestational ages at diagnosis(P=0.000), more severe grades of fetal heart disease(P=0.002) and younger mothers(P=0.014) correlated with terminations of pregnanies. But the grades of fetal status, the grades of associated anomaly, whether in-vitro-fertilization was carried out or not and numbers of previous children were not significant. Conclusion : This study found that the earlier gestational ages at diagnosis, younger maternal age and higher grades of fetal heart disease tended to lead parent to select abortions. Fetal echocardiographies were performed too late. Moreover Koreans have a biased view that malformation is a something incurable and a tragedy not only to oneself, but also to a family. So parents select terminations of pregnancy, even in curable cases. This is very unethical.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.230-252
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• 1996

Over one million cases of the induced abortion have been conducted annually in Korea. Among those cases, most of all were illegally done, but this has not been addressed in the literature. While Korean Nurse Association Code of Ethics presents the respect for life as one of the basic ideology, it was not dealt enough in nursing education. The purposes of the study were to activate the debate on the issues related to an induced abortion ; to introduce the related ethical theories ; and to seek the solution of the ethical problems, which will eventually result in establishing the morality of nursing practice. The ethical theories of an induced abortion have traditionally addressed two extreme perspectives ; the conservatives who emphasize the sanctity of human life and the right of life that will never ethically allow the killing fetus ; and the liberalists who insist the right to choice for women to control their body. Since these extreme theories has not been helpful to solve the ethical problems, the recent trend is leading to the modified theories both from conservative and liberal perspectives. The examples of the theories are the potentiality of fetus(Singer, 1993), the obligation of women to serve their body to fetus(Held, 1987), the Replacement theory (Callahan, 1987), and the Principle of Caring (Gilligan, 1982). The study conducted the indepth interviews with 17 women who experienced the induced abortion and the 6 cases were selected to be analyzed. The cases were analyzed and interpreted by using an integrated case method which was combined of the New Casuisty(Jonsen & Toulmin, 1988 ; Jonsen, 1991) and the Specified Principlism (Richardson, 1990 ; Degrazia, 1992). The result of analysis revealed three types of ethical problems ; (1) the responsibility of taking care of the baby to be born (2) the fear for the condition of the fetus, and (3) the choice of induced abortion as the method of birth control. The findings also revealed the related ethical principles for various situations ; the principle of caring was used for choosing an induced abortion by the subjects ; the principles of the potentiality of fetus and the obligation of women to serve their body were for the consideration for the life of fetus ; and the principle of replacement was utilized for the right to choice for women. The ethical principles related to an induced abortion introduced in the study provided the way to solve the moral problems by applying to the clinical situations for nurses. The study also revealed the possibility of modifying the current ethical theories from the method of applying the principles to the various situation in the study. The modified theories would be more useful to guide the clinical practice with similar ethical problems.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.229-235
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• 1985

This study was undertaken for the clinical evaluation and statistical analysis on the 88 women with histopathologically confirmed ectopic pregnancies who were admitted and treated from grand opening on May-28, 1983 to Sept.-30, 1985. Incidence of ectopic pregnancy was 1 in 22.2 deliveries and the most common age group was in 30~34 years of age. There was tendency of decreasing incidencies as the gravidity, panty or artificial abortion were over 3. The most common etiologic factor was pelvic inflammatory disease and procedures for family planning were the next common. Common symptoms were lower abdominal pain (85.2%) and vaginal spotting (56.8%). At the admission, hemoglobin level under 10gm% were 44.3%, 69.5% of urine HCG tests were positive. Culdocentesis was positive only in 75.9%. Termination was frequent at 6 ~ 7 weeks of gestation mostly with rupture or abortion. Free blood in the abdominal cavity was averaged 1,224 ml. 4 cases of clinicobiochemically suspected ectopic pregnancies with spontaneous regression were excluded, and there was no fatal case treated in hospital.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.4048-4055
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of biomedical ethics of long-term care hospital nurses. A survey research was conducted in this study with 183 nurses that worked for over five months at long-term care hospitals located in Gwangju and Jeonnam region. Using SPSS 21.0 program, collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, independent t-test and one-way ANOVA. $Scheff{\acute{e}}$ test and Pearson's correlation analysis were also used for post hoc test. In terms of the awareness of biomedical ethics of the research participants, it was at an above average level. Among the sub-categories of biomedical ethics, awareness of right of life of fetus and awareness of artificial abortion showed most meaningful correlation. It would be necessary to provide bioethics education to new nurses or university students majoring in Nursing at related organizations or college of nursing to help them establish ethical values to seek patients' well-being.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.323-361
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• 2009

In Korea, Abortion in the Criminal Law is an illegal act in exception of on which abortion may be carried out through the grounds are very limited and related such a emergency situation of women's physical health, rape, incest and genetic diseases. The Criminal Law regulates the mother's act of abortion and the doctor's surgical performance of abortion. The Mother and the Child Health Law prescribes the medical, ethical, and genetic grounds for the legal permission of abortion. Many people tend to abuse of abortion even though they are fully aware of its illegality. The law lead to be inconsistent with its enforcement. In this paper, I would like to suggest some proposals about the legal analysis of the Abortion Regulations th reform the existing regulation and increase th effectiveness of the regulations. Recently, in a case of the a maternity hospital where a midwife left alone a diabetes pregnancy women who had a baby, and the overweight baby(5.2Kg) died in the uterus due to hypoxic states. Supreme Court of Korea 2007.6.29. 2005do3832) had given a verdict of "not guilty". It looked like there were very fair with current crime law. But, we want this case to be investigated if there weren't any logical contradictions as well as concurrent translation within Constitution Law. Now the Mother and the Child Health Law prescribes the medical, ethical, and genetic grounds for the legal permission of abortion. But this law does not include social and economic grounds.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.23-43
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to explore the determinants of induced abortions of married women in Korea, with focus on the socioeconomic factors including fertility behaviors and ideation regarding family values. Data from the 2000 Korea National Fertility Survey by Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs were used for the research. In particular, the women´s fertility history from 1998 to 2000 was served as the main data for this study. Among 1,901 pregnancies in total, 1,612 pregnancy outcomes were selected for the final analysis. Chi-square test, Wilcoxon rank sum test and multivariate logistic regressions were employed to identify influential factors on induced abortions. According to the results, working women was more likely than those who did not work to terminate their pregnancy by an induced abortion. Women´s religion did not show any significant impact on an induced abortion. A pregnant woman already having more than or equal to two children was very likely to choose an induced abortion. Likewise, those in unwanted pregnancy showed high probability of induced abortions. However, contrary to what we believe, it turned out that the number of sons did not affect the choice of induced abortions.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.111-124
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• 2009

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to provide basic data for suggesting the realistic plan for the prevention of induced abortion. We performed an analysis of a recognition and actual conditions of the induced abortion according to the marital status. Methods: Participants were 681 persons of 20 years of age or older who lived in 7 cities and provinces. The data was collected with a structured questionnaire. For data analysis, Chi-square test, t-test and stepwise discriminant analysis were utilized. Results: The results were as follows. When degrees of recognition were analyzed according to the marital status, married were found to have higher levels of recognition of induced abortion than unmarried. From comparison of the recognition, there were significant differences between married and unmarried in terms of the recognition of the law, premarital sex, sex consciousness, intention of induced abortion, knowledge of contraception. Conclusion: The above results showed that marital status was strongly related to the recognition of induced abortion. And measures for preventing the induced abortion, specially about 20 percents of risky unmarried, should be focused.