ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: what for?

NL888 — Sat, 10 May 2008 01:59:24 GMT

Thanks Avangi.

No wonder reading your first post added to my puzzling with more confusion. But thankfully I now got it clearly.

Re: what for?

Avangi — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:03:09 GMT

Hi NL888,

I guess I was in too much of a hurry. The 24 - 32 weeks was not the duration of the pregnancies at the time of the cesarean, as I first understood, but rather the points where the glucose tolerance tests were performed.

I now must assume that an independent source of standardized data was used to determine where the babies in the study fit in, in terms of birth weight.

Baby number 15,297 had a birth weight of six pounds two ounces. He was delivered after 33 weeks in the womb. We look on a standard chart to see how the weights run for babies who are delivered at this particular gestational age (33 weeks.) We find that ten percent of all babies ever recorded for this particular gestational age weighed six pounds or over at birth. So our baby belongs to the group who had birth weights above the 90th percentile for his particular gestational age.

Sorry for the error. - A.

Re: what for?

NL888 — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:47:19 GMT

Thank you Avangi.

I'd wait until some one else replies the other questions.

Re: what for?

Avangi — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:07:03 GMT

NL888
3) What does "birth weight above the 90th percentile for gestational age" mean?

Normal human gestation period is 9 months. These are all cesareans @ between 24 and 32 weeks. If you plot the birth weights of all the babies, either by number of days or number of weeks, and look at all the weights for, let's say, 29 weeks; and arrange them in order of magnitude, and then take the top ten percent of those; then those babies would have birth weights above the 90th percentile of all the babies with a gestation period of 29 weeks. If you repeated this process for all the babies born after a particular number of weeks in the womb, then all of them together would be the group you're looking for.

Sorry, I was going to do all, but I have an appointment. - A.

Edit. You wouldn't actually have to plot them on a graph (but you could). You could sort them according to number of weeks in the womb, and then sort each of those sub groups according to magnitude, and then take the top 10 percent of each subgroup.

what for?

NL888 — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:20:24 GMT

The following context is about medicine research, a bit hard to read. But what I need most is your grammatical instruction:

Hyperglycemia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

The HAPO Study Cooperative Research Group
May 8, 2008

ABSTRACT

Background It is controversial whether maternal hyperglycemia less severe than that in diabetes mellitus is associated with increased risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Methods A total of 25,505 pregnant women at 15 centers in nine countries underwent 75-g oral glucose-tolerance testing at 24 to 32 weeks of gestation. Data remained blinded if the fasting plasma glucose level was 105 mg per deciliter (5.8 mmol per liter) or less and the 2-hour plasma glucose level was 200 mg per deciliter (11.1 mmol per liter) or less. Primary outcomes were birth weight above the 90th percentile for gestational age, primary cesarean delivery, clinically diagnosed neonatal hypoglycemia, and cord-blood serum C-peptide level above the 90th percentile. Secondary outcomes were delivery before 37 weeks of gestation, shoulder dystocia or birth injury, need for intensive neonatal care, hyperbilirubinemia, and preeclampsia.

1) The data remained blinded? Reminded blinded for who? Remained blinded for investigators/for performers of the study?

2) Does the primary outcome refer to the first time outcome of oral glucose-tolerance testing?

Primary outcomes were: (1) birth weight above the

90th percentile for gestational age, (2) primary

cesarean delivery, (3) clinically diagnosed neonatal

hypoglycemia, and (4) cord-blood serum C-peptide level

above the 90th percentile?

3) What does "birth weight above the 90th percentile for gestational age" mean?