News & Updates

Children of women with high blood sugar levels during pregnancy may more likely be obese by age 7, compared to children born to women with lower blood sugar levels during pregnancy, according to a study led by investigators from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Women who eat more potatoes before pregnancy may have higher rates of gestational diabetes—the form that occurs during pregnancy—compared to women who consume fewer potatoes, suggests a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study.

NICHD needs your input for NIH’s All of Us program.

Couples who attempt to conceive within three months after losing an early pregnancy, defined as less than 20 weeks gestation, have the same chances, if not greater, of achieving a live birth than those who wait for three months or more, according to a National Institutes of Health study.

Children conceived via infertility treatments are no more likely to have a developmental delay than children conceived without such treatments, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the New York State Department of Health and other institutions.

Children from low income environments appear to have a higher risk of neurological impairment than those from more economically secure circumstances, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

Current standards for ultrasound evaluation of fetal growth may lead to misclassification of up to 15 percent of fetuses of minority mothers as being too small, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other institutions.

NICHD recently launched the NICHD Data and Specimen Hub (DASH), a centralized resource for researchers to store and access de-identified data from NICHD-funded research studies for secondary research use.

A high proportion of reproductive-age women may be experiencing pelvic pain that goes untreated, according to a study by researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City.

Working in a physically demanding job, having high blood pressure, and taking multiple medications are among health risks that may undermine a man’s fertility, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Stanford University, Stanford, California.

NICHD’s Division of Intramural Population Health Research today announced the appointment of Dr. Stephen E. Gilman as the new Acting Chief of the Health Behavior Branch (HBB).

​​Certain sunscreen chemicals used to protect against ultraviolent rays may impair men’s ability to father children in a timely manner, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health and the New York state Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center. But the researchers caution that the results are preliminary and that additional studies are needed to confirm their findings.

Nearly half of all cases of diabetes during pregnancy could be prevented if the expecting mothers ate well, exercised regularly, stopped smoking, and maintained a healthy body weight before pregnancy, a new study finds.

NIH researchers have concluded that women who experience prolonged labor have an excellent chance for a successful vaginal delivery. However, the researchers did find a slightly increased risk of complications for mothers and babies. The researchers advised women and their health care practitioners to weigh the increased benefits of vaginal delivery against the slightly increased risk.

American young adults are more racially and ethnically diverse, more likely to graduate from high school, and attend college, and less likely to smoke than previous generations, according to a report by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. However, the young adults have more student debt than generations past, earn less than their counterparts in the year 2000, and more than 1 in 5 are obese, the report says.

A new study found that bullying among students in grades six through ten declined significantly between 1998 and 2010. Fighting among students also declined, although less dramatically.

Exercise alone may help prevent gestational diabetes—which occurs in women during pregnancy—from progressing to Type 2 diabetes in the time after pregnancy, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

High cholesterol levels may impair fertility in couples trying to achieve a pregnancy, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the University at Buffalo (New York), and Emory University in Atlanta.

For National Infertility Awareness Week, this April 20–26, the NICHD joins the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health (OWH), the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), and RESOLVE: The National Infertility Organization for a Twitter chat on infertility.

A daily low dose of aspirin does not appear to prevent subsequent pregnancy loss among women with a history of one or two prior pregnancy losses, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.