SATURDAY, April 19 (HealthDay News) -- Pregnancy has long been considered a kind of gastronomical free-for-all. After all, a pregnant woman has to nourish two bodies with the food she eats, right?

The problem is, the baby's nutritional needs are only around 300 calories a day, and extra weight gain can increase the risk of pregnancy complications for both mother and child.

And, weight concerns don't stop after the baby is born, because extra weight gain after pregnancy increases the risk of complications in subsequent pregnancies, even if a woman never gains enough to be considered overweight.

"Women think they have carte blanche to eat whatever they want during pregnancy, but that's not a good idea," said Dr. Miriam Greene, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University Medical Center and the author of the book, Frankly Pregnant: A Candid, Week-by-Week Guide to the Unexpected Joys, Raging Hormones, and Common Experiences of Pregnancy.

"If you eat for two, you'll end up with complications you didn't need to take on. Eat what your appetite tells you to eat, and eat slowly, so you can tell when you're full," advised Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, an obstetrician at MacDonald Women's Hospital at Case Medical Center, University Hospitals in Cleveland, and author of the book, The Working Woman's Pregnancy Book.

During pregnancy, an average-weight woman should gain about 25 to 35 pounds, according to Greene. "You don't want your weight gain to be less than 15 or greater than 40," she said.

But many women aren't heeding that advice. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that about one-quarter of American women gain more than 40 pounds during their pregnancy. The IOM is currently reviewing its guidelines on pregnancy weight gain and expects to issue new guidelines during the summer of 2009.

In the meantime, the IOM recommends that women with a body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height) of less than 18.5 should gain 28 to 40 pounds during pregnancy, while women with an average BMI -- 18.5 to 24.9 -- should keep weight gain between 25 and 35 pounds. Overweight women with BMIs of 25 to 29.9 should try to gain between 15 and 25 pounds throughout their pregnancy, and obese women with BMIs over 30 need only gain 15 pounds.

Gaining too much weight during pregnancy puts both baby and mom at risk of complications, such as gestational diabetes and high blood pressure, labor complications, stillbirth and delivery of a large-for-gestational age baby, according to the March of Dimes.

Greene said about two-thirds of her patients manage to stay within the guidelines. And those who don't are very disappointed at how hard the weight is to get off afterward.

She recommends that her pregnant patients eat well-balanced diets and that they don't give in to every food craving. "It's not healthy to gain weight eating pints of ice cream," she said.

Greenfield is also a fan of most exercises during pregnancy. Not only can exercise help you stave off pregnancy weight gain, it improves overall well-being as well, she said.

"Pregnancy is a special time when a lot of women will take better care of themselves to take care of the baby. It's a golden opportunity to take care of yourself, and you may have an impact on your health and your baby's health in the long run," Greenfield noted.

And, it's not just during pregnancy that women have to be concerned about extra pounds. A recent study found that every one or two point increase in a woman's BMI between pregnancies translated to an increased risk of gestational diabetes, high blood pressure and delivering a large baby by 20 percent to 40 percent. Women who increased their BMI more than three points between pregnancies had a 63 percent increased risk of delivering a stillborn baby.

The increases in the risks of complications held true even if the BMI changes didn't place a woman into the overweight or obese category, the study found.

More information

To learn more about weight gain during pregnancy, visit the American Pregnancy Association  .

FRIDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time, a doctor's arsenal now includes a vaccine that can actually prevent cancer.

Gardasil targets human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes virtually all cases of cervical cancer and is present in one in four American women.

And health-care providers are beginning to integrate that vaccine into the schedule of other immunizations that children receive during childhood and adolescence.

About 13 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed globally since its approval in June 2006, said Kelley Dougherty, director of public affairs for Merck & Co., the company that created Gardasil. Of those, 10.5 million doses have been distributed in the United States.

"We estimate between 3 to 5 million girls have been vaccinated with Gardasil, but that is a very rough estimate," Dougherty said.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 11,150 new cases of invasive cervical cancer were diagnosed in the United States in 2007, and 3,670 women died from the disease.

Cervical cancer used to be one of the most common causes of cancer death for U.S. women, but the death rate declined by 74 percent between 1955 and 1992. That was largely due to increased use of the Pap test, which can detect cellular changes in the cervix before cancer develops, the cancer society says.

"Women for so many years have heard the message that they need Pap tests, it's almost equivalent to seeing a gynecologist," said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancers for the American Cancer Society. "I think for breast exams, many women wait for their doctor to recommend it, whereas for the Pap test, they're more likely to go get one."

The death rate from cervical cancer continues to decline by almost 4 percent a year, thanks to the Pap test.

But doctors now believe they are poised to deal cervical cancer a knockout blow, thanks to the HPV vaccine.

In the nearly two years that have followed its approval, Gardasil has been added to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccination recommendations for girls ages 11 to 12. The vaccine, designed for females from ages 9 to 26, requires three shots taken within a six-month period.

Researchers have also discovered that the vaccine guards against vaginal and vulval cancers. HPV is present in 80 percent of the 6,000 cases of vulval and vaginal cancers diagnosed each year.

It's hard to know how many girls have actually received the vaccine. Merck bases its estimate on anecdotal reports from the field, but the American Cancer Society has no estimates of its own.

"We don't know how many [vaccines] are sitting in a refrigerator somewhere, versus in a girl's arm," Saslow said.

New research is looking at other ways the vaccine could be used to guard against cancer.

For example, Merck is studying whether the vaccine would work in women as old as 45, Dougherty said. The company also is exploring whether the vaccine works against other strains of HPV beyond the four it was originally meant to target.

Research also is under way to see if boys should receive the vaccine, as a way to protect girls from HPV. While males obviously can't get HPV-linked cervical cancer, they can help spread the sexually transmitted virus.

"Because males can transmit HPV to their partner, putting their partner at risk for developing cervical diseases, we have had a male research program going for some time now," Dougherty said.

The vaccine may also prove to be a way to protect men as well. HPV has been shown to be a cause of throat cancer, which affects both sexes.

"We just know the vaccine is safe in males, but we need to prove that it works," Saslow said. Test results for males are still two to three years away, she said.

For older women, the best way to prevent cervical cancer is through the Pap test.

Cervical cancer tends to occur in midlife, with half of women diagnosed between the ages of 35 and 55, according to the American Cancer Society.

Under current cancer society guidelines, all women should begin cervical cancer screening about three years after they begin having vaginal intercourse but no later than age 21. Testing should be done every year with the regular Pap test or every two years using a newer liquid-based Pap test.

Beginning at age 30, most women who have had three normal Pap test results in a row can space out their screenings to every two to three years.

Most women 70 or older who have had three or more normal Pap tests in a row and no abnormal Pap test results in the last 10 years can choose to stop having the test.

More information

To learn more, visit the American Cancer Society  .

WEDNESDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- Young adults can discern another person's attitude toward sexual relationships just by looking at his or her face, according to a British study of 700 heterosexual volunteers.

The Durham University-led study also found that men generally prefer women who they believe are open to short-term sexual relationships, while women generally prefer men who they perceive to be potentially suitable for a long-term relationship.

The study participants looked at photographs of faces of members of the opposite sex (all in their early 20s) and were asked to judge their attractiveness and sexual attitudes. Their judgments were compared with the actual attitudes and behaviors of the people in the photos.

As it turned out, 72 percent of the 153 volunteers in the first study sample correctly identified sexual attitudes from photos more than 50 percent of the time.

Women who were open to short-term sexual relationships were usually rated by others as being more attractive, but the researchers need to delve into this further to determine why that's the case. Men who were most open to casual sex were generally perceived as being more masculine-looking, with facial features such as squarer jaws, larger nose and smaller eyes.

The study was published in current issue of Evolution in Human Behavior.

"Our results suggest that although some people can judge the sexual strategy of others simply be looking at their face, people are not always sure about their judgments, possibly because the cues are very subtle. Yet preferences for different types of faces were actually quite strong," study author Dr. Lynda Boothroyd, of the psychology department at Durham University, said in a prepared statement.

"This shows that these initial impressions may be part of how we assess potential mates -- or potential rivals -- when we first meet them. These will then give way over time to more in-depth knowledge of that person, as you get to know them better, and may change with age," Boothroyd said.

"Lots of previous studies have shown that people can judge a lot about a person from their face, including things like health and even some personality traits like introversion, but this really is the first study to show that people are also sensitive to subtle facial signals about the type of romantic relationships that others might enjoy," study co-author Dr. Ben Jones, of the University of Aberdeen's Face Research Lab, said in a prepared statement.

While faces may provide cues to sexual attitudes, men shouldn't presume any kind of relationship is wanted based on appearance alone, warned study co-author David Perrett, of the University of St. Andrews, who also noted that "most women found promiscuous-looking guys unattractive for both short and long-term relationships."

More information

The American Psychological Association has more about sexuality  .

THURSDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- Women who are victims of male partner violence suffer a wide range of physical and mental health problems, says a World Health Organization study that included 25,000 women in 11 countries.

The women, aged 15 to 49, came from Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, and the United Republic of Tanzania. The study found that having ever experienced physical or sexual partner violence was associated with poor health overall, and with specific health problems in the four weeks prior to being interviewed: pain, memory loss, dizziness, vaginal discharge and difficulty walking or doing daily activities.

In addition, women who'd experienced partner violence at least once in their lives had more emotional distress, or suicidal thoughts or attempts, than women who'd never suffered abuse by a male partner.

Differences in age, education or marital status did not seem to be factors in the association between partner violence and these physical and mental health problems in women.

The study findings, published in this week's issue of The Lancet, suggest that the effects of this kind of violence linger long after the actual violence has ended, the researchers said.

"In addition to being a breach of human rights, the high prevalence of partner violence and its associations with poor health -- including implied costs in terms of health expenditures and human suffering -- highlight the urgent need to address partner violence in national and global health-sector policies and programs," the study authors concluded.

In an accompanying commentary, Riyadh K. Lafta, of the Mustansiriya Medical School in Baghdad, Iraq, stated: "Accurate and comparable data on violence against women are needed to strengthen advocacy efforts, help policy makers understand the problem, and guide design of preventive interventions."

However, efforts to collect data are hampered by several factors including: the influence of social and cultural views in determining what constitutes violence; the settings of interviews, the type of target population, and the way questions are asked, Lafta noted.

More information

The American Bar Association offers a domestic violence safety plan  .