Women who became pregnant more than once tended to have a lower risk of disease progression than did women who became pregnant only once.

Women with HIV infection who become pregnant have a lower risk of progression to AIDS and death, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center report.
Their findings, posted on the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, suggest that “the complex set of immunologic changes“ that occur during pregnancy may be interacting in a beneficial way with combination drug therapy, reported Newswise.com.
Some previous studies in the developing world had reported higher levels of complications and deaths from AIDS among pregnant women. But those studies were conducted before the advent of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), drug “cocktails“ that over the past decade have dramatically reduced death and complication rates among people infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The Vanderbilt study included 759 women treated between 1997 and 2004 at Nashville’s Comprehensive Care Center, one of the America’s largest outpatient AIDS treatment programs. More than 500 of these women received HAART, including 119 of the 139 women who had at least one pregnancy during the study period.
After using statistical modeling methods to adjust for differences between women, including their age, health and response to therapy, the researchers found that “pregnant women did better,“ said Timothy Sterling, M.D., the study’s senior author and associate professor of Medicine.
In addition, women who became pregnant more than once during the study tended to have a lower risk of disease progression than did women who became pregnant only once. That also supports the conclusion that something about pregnancy is beneficial, he added. However, more study is needed, Sterling cautioned. Pregnant women were healthier than the women who did not become pregnant, and they may have been more likely to adhere to their therapy out of concern for the fetus.

Saudi Arabia has seen many rapid changes in the past decades. One that is becoming more obvious is that of Saudi women who are increasingly opting to marry foreigners. Recent statistics issued by the Interior Ministry showed that 20,000 marriages have been registered between Saudi women and foreign men in the past five years.
Saudi women are prohibited from marrying non-Saudis, except with special permission from higher authorities. Permission is also required before a Saudi woman is able to marry an Arab, who is not a citizen of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council.
According to Majed Al-Sharif from Riyadh’s Marriage Court, the year 2007 has seen, in comparison to previous years, a higher number of cross-nationality marriages.
He added that his office had received (at the time when this report was being written) 28 applications for such marriages.
Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Askar, a marriage registrar, told Arab News, that the number of marriages between Saudi women and expatriates are way below the number of marriages between Saudi men and foreign women. “The former doesn’t go above 13 percent of the total cross-nationality marriages that are registered,“ he said.
Sheikh Al-Askar said that this is due to the fact that applications by men to marry foreign women take less time to get approved than applications by women.
He added that men also have options to have more than one wife and this explains why the number of marriages between Saudi men and foreign women surpass the number of marriage between Saudi women and foreign men.
He pointed that living in a rich and tax-free country is attractive for many foreigners, who can easily achieve this by marrying a Saudi woman.
For this reason, some families remain unsure about a foreigner’s real intention in getting married and so reject them.
Saudi women know that marrying a non-Saudi has its drawbacks, especially in relation to children, who would not be able to enjoy the privileges that Saudi citizens have and would need an iqama (residential permit) to reside in the Kingdom.
Also according to UPI, Women in Saudi Arabia are banding together to press for the freedom to drive automobiles.
The recently established League of Demanders of Women’s Right to Drive Cars plans to deliver a petition to the king calling on him to restore their right to free movement by allowing them to drive
Saudi Arabia is currently the only country in the world that still bans women from driving cars. The issue has been a matter of heated debate for many years. In 1990 a group of middle class women were arrested when they staged driving protests.
London-based Saudi political analyst Mai Yamani says reformist efforts to lift the barriers to women working mean little if they can’t drive.
“You can’t keep a woman locked up so she can’t get out, drive her child to school.“ Yamani says. “I definitely believe it is time women were allowed to drive.“

Pakistani women are target of increasing violence, with 7,200 cases reported in a study that has cited an alarming 5,000 cases from the country’s most developed Punjab province.
The report by NGO White Ribbon Campaign (WRC) said violence against women has taken many shapes and forms regardless of geographical location, culture or wealth.
The Interior Ministry had reported 7,200 cases of violence against women in its annual report, WRC National Campaign Coordinator, Omar Aftab, said adding that an alarming 5,000 cases had been from Punjab.
Sexual harassment at workplace, abuse, beating, and rape were some of the forms of violence against women, the report said.
The reasons for violence against women include social, economic and psychological, the Daily Times quoted Aftab as saying.
Omar said the WRC had involved a number of young people in the campaign in order to bring about an effective social change.
A World Bank report states that the labor class was more prone to violence against women, he said. The WRC, started in 1991, is an initiative to end violence against women.

Obese pregnant women may have an increased risk of losing their baby relatively late in pregnancy, and black women appear particularly at risk, a large study suggests.
Researchers found that obese women were 40 percent more likely than normal-weight and overweight women to have their pregnancy end in stillbirth--defined as fetal death in the 20th week of pregnancy or later.
African-American women were especially at risk. Compared with obese white women, their rate of stillbirth was 90 percent higher, the study authors report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Part of the reason for the obesity-stillbirth link may rest in the fact that obese women are more prone to diabetes and high blood pressure in pregnancy, explained Dr. Hamisu Salihu, an associate professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa and the study’s lead author.
Because black women have higher rates of these pregnancy complications than white women do, this may also help explain the racial gap, according to the researchers.
However, diabetes and high blood pressure are not the whole story, Salihu told Reuters Health, and other factors must be at work.
For example, he explained, obese women also have higher levels of lipids--blood fats such as cholesterol. These fats suppress a substance called prostacyclin, which can narrow the blood vessels and promote blood clotting in vessels supplying the fetus.
Whatever the reason for the higher risk of stillbirth, the best way to reduce these odds is for obese women to shed weight before getting pregnant, according to Salihu.

An Iranian woman in worship during the Friday congregation in Tehran.

Red saris adorned with ornaments signify that the Hindu women are happily married.

Hindu women in Nepal have been fasting and praying for their husbands’ well-being and longevity.
The rituals are part of the annual festival known as Teej, which usually includes visits to temples of the god Lord Shiva.
“We are celebrating this festival, because it’s our culture and we love it,“ one woman, Bimala Sharma, told the BBC in the capital, Kathmandu.
Similar festivals are also observed in northern India.
On the streets of Kathmandu, several groups of women in red saris were seen walking to the holy Pashupatinath temple of Lord Shiva, one of Hinduism’s holiest shrines.
Traditionally, the Queen of Nepal also visits the temple on this day.
The red saris adorned with ornaments signify that the women are happily married.
Bimala’s sister, Mathura, said: “For us, it’s also a time to get together with our married sisters and other friends and childhood playmates.“
Some women abstain from water, as well as food, during the fast.
They believe the fast will bring good fortune to their husbands and offspring.
Strict observers of the fast only break it after worshipping Lord Shiva and taking a holy bath the day after the Teej festival.
Nepalese Hindu women have been celebrating the Teej festival since time immemorial.
The tradition, they believe, goes back to mythological times when the goddess Parvati observed a similar fast and prayed that she could marry Lord Shiva.
Unmarried young girls also observe the fast, asking god to find a good husband.

Depression and anxiety are the most common cause of complaint by women, followed by musculoskeletal problems.

Male patients are more likely to get certified sick leave from male doctors than females are from female doctors, a British study found.
The study was based on a survey of 3,906 patients from nine general practices in the county Merseyside, in North West England. In the United Kingdom, the first week of sickness can be self-certified by the patient--but any sickness thereafter must be certified by a primary care physician, said Dr. Mark Gabbay of the University of Liverpool, according to Science Daily.
The study, published in the journal Family Practice, found depression and anxiety were the most common cause of complaint by women, followed by musculoskeletal problems. Males sought time off for musculoskeletal problems, but male patients were granted a longer amount of sick leave for depression and anxiety compared with female patients--by doctors of both genders.
“Male patients may be more demanding, or better negotiators, when facing a male doctor,“ Gabbay said in a statement. “What is not clear is whether this group do indeed have relatively greater problems, poorer coping skills, or are more sympathetically dealt with by male than female doctors.“

China is the only country in the world where suicides among women outnumber those of men, with rural suicides more common than those in the city, state media said.
Village women committing suicide commonly drank pesticide, the China Daily said, quoting the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Centre.
Stress and depression caused up to 80 percent of suicide attempts in the city, with many choosing to jump off buildings.
“China is the only country where suicides among women outnumber men,“ Yang Fude, vice-president of Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital said.
According to government figures, more than 287,000 people end their own lives every year in China.
A recent report by researchers at Peking University found more than 20 percent of 140,000 high school students interviewed said they had considered committing suicide.
And last week, the central government ordered health records be kept for all first-year students amid rising concern over campus suicides.

Blood levels of folic acid have increased among American women since the federal government mandated folate fortification to prevent birth defects, but questions remain as to how much folate is enough or too much, reported HealthDay News.
A new study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds that the number of women of childbearing age who have low blood folate levels has plunged following a 1998 federal mandate to enrich bread and grains with added folate.
The rate of low blood folate among women has fallen from 21 percent in 1988-1994 (before the fortification program) to less than 1 percent in 2003-2004, six years after fortification began.