News & Updates

NIH awarded two new grants to expand its Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence. These institutions design and implement research projects seeking to reduce pregnancy-related complications and deaths and promote maternal health equity in the United States.

NICHD is co-hosting several workshops and virtual meetings on women’s health topics in summer 2024. Please consider registering to participate in discussions and to help shape future research and care.

Individuals born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy and when they were children may be at an increased risk for high blood pressure and diabetes.

A report issued by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine makes recommendations to improve the safe and ethical inclusion of pregnant and lactating women in clinical research while reducing the risk of liability. Enhancing inclusion of pregnant and lactating women in clinical research promises to help women and their health care providers make informed decisions.

The Division of Intramural Research provides fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems through basic, clinical, and population-based research.

NIH has announced finalists in its competition to accelerate the development of diagnostic and monitoring technologies to improve fetal health outcomes.

Tiny, balloon-like particles released from the placenta could provide clues to identify fetuses at risk for growth restriction early so that pregnancies could be monitored for complications.

There were more than 2.5 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia in the United States in 2022. NICHD research aims to prevent these and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among women, infants, children, and adolescents. Focus areas include addressing the need for additional STI prevention methods for women and curbing the rise in congenital syphilis cases.

Preterm infants born to women who have been vaccinated for COVID-19 had roughly the same levels of antibodies to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 as term infants born to vaccinated women, allaying concerns that fewer antibodies might pass to preterm infants.

Sepsis screening tools designed to account for the physiological changes that may occur during pregnancy perform best from 20 weeks of pregnancy through 3 days postpartum, research suggests. In early pregnancy and later in the postpartum period, tools based on general sepsis screening criteria may more accurately predict which patients are at high risk for maternal sepsis, a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths.

An atlas of the placenta developed by NIH researchers offers insight on the communication that occurs between maternal and fetal cells during labor and delivery.

Researchers linked malformations in stillborn infants to copy number variants—lengths of DNA in which hereditary material is duplicated or deleted. What they learned could lead provide information helpful to parents and for pregnancy care.

A questionnaire detecting strong emotional responses to traumatic births could help identify new mothers at risk for developing childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder. It may lead to faster diagnosis—and treatment—of post traumatic stress disorder in new mothers.

Pregnant women who tested positive for cannabis use were at 27% higher risk for conditions related to poor placental function—including hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, stillbirth, and growth restriction relative to gestational age—than pregnant women who tested negative.

In 2023, NICHD continued its commitment to research to understand human development, improve reproductive health, promote women’s health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. Highlights include steps toward reducing the global burden of maternal sepsis and establishing a standard treatment for opioid-exposed newborns.

By late 2022, widespread COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant women likely halted a spike in the preterm birth rate that began at the start of the pandemic, suggests a new study. The findings underscore the need for pregnant women to keep current on COVID-19 vaccination.

As we ring in 2024, we’d like to take a brief look back on our accomplishments during 2023. These activities illustrate the institute’s continued commitment to research and training in its mission areas.

Depression in early and mid-pregnancy seems to age the placenta more rapidly than not experiencing depression during pregnancy. Premature placental aging could account for higher rates of low birth weight, preterm birth, blood pressure disorders, diabetes, and other complications linked to depression in pregnancy, underscoring the need to diagnose and treat depression in pregnant women.

Researchers developed a new method of evaluating blood from pregnant women to identify anomalies in the genes of fetuses. The new approach is more sensitive than current tests, which screen only for chromosome-level variants, such as an extra chromosome, and a small number of fetal genetic variants. It is also less invasive than current methods, which often involve inserting a needle into the uterus to retrieve fetal cells for analysis.

The Division of Intramural Research provides fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems through basic, clinical, and population-based research.