News & Updates

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.

Fetuses with enlarged ventricles—the fluid-filled cavities inside the brain—may be less likely than their counterparts to benefit from surgery in the womb to treat spina bifida, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Wale Olukanmi has spent more than two decades as an oncology nurse and physician's assistant at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. As a medical practitioner and father of four, he thought he was well-informed about the health risks and pitfalls of parenting. Then, he completed an all-day training on safe infant sleep practices, where he learned about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of death in babies one month to one year of age, and about other sleep-related infant deaths, such as suffocation.

Extremely preterm infants, those born before the 28th week of pregnancy, are surviving in greater numbers and escaping serious illness, according to a comprehensive review of births in a National Institutes of Health research network.

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 new technology that tracks the electrical activity of the fetal heart offers no advantages over conventional technology in preventing birth complications, according to a new study by the National Institutes of Health.

Many new mothers do not receive advice from physicians on aspects of infant care such as sleep position, breastfeeding, immunization and pacifier use, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

NICHD’s Population Dynamics Branch supports research on a range of topics, including the factors that make populations rise and fall, such as fertility and mortality. We checked in with branch chief Rebecca Clark to learn more about the branch’s work.

In the U.S., more than 3,500 infants die each year from sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, and from what experts describe as “other sleep-related causes of infant death.” Sparing families this incomprehensible tragedy has been a long-term goal of the National Institutes of Health.

A hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) provides treatment and care for premature infants and other newborns with severe illnesses, injuries, or conditions. NICUs are specially equipped to address the needs of critically ill infants with medical equipment designed for very small bodies. But often these devices are simply downsized versions of tools created for older patients. There remains a need for new, specially designed tools and devices to better address infants’ unique needs and conditions.

The number of American infants born before the 37th week of pregnancy dropped slightly in 2013, as did the percentage of children with asthma under the age of 17. The percentage of teens who experienced a major depressive episode increased. These and other findings are described in America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2015.

Ten years ago, NICHD research established the standard therapy for infants born with oxygen deprivation. Today, NICHD research continues to find answers and provide hope for children and families.

A technique to increase the flow of blood from the umbilical cord into the infant’s circulatory system improves blood pressure and red blood cell levels in preterm infants delivered by cesarean section, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The Cincinnati MR Imaging of Neurodevelopment (C-MIND) study was launched in 2009 to establish a new resource for the research community: a database of scans showing the structure and activity of the growing brain. C-MIND has taken an unprecedented look at what’s going on inside the heads of hundreds of kids from ages 0 to 18.

​The antibiotic meropenem was approved by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration for treating abdominal infections in children less than 3 months of age.

How soon after a baby is born should the practitioner wait to cut the umbilical cord? That simple question has no easy answer.

An intervention to teach mothers of preterm infants how to interact with their babies more effectively results in better weight gain and growth for the infants, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.

Parents who took part in a program to learn parenting skills during their first pregnancy had children who were better adjusted than parents who didn’t participate in the program. That’s what researchers concluded after evaluating the program 5 to 7 years later.

The antiretroviral drugs used to keep HIV at bay are an unqualified success at preventing the spread of the virus from mother to child. The drugs are not only essential for maintaining the health of a pregnant woman with HIV, they have also nearly eliminated the transmission of HIV to her baby. Among U.S. women, the likelihood of a mother passing the virus on to her child is now less than 1%.

The next NICHD Director’s Lecture at the NIH will feature Diana Bianchi, M.D., from Tufts University School of Medicine. Her talk, titled “Changing Paradigms: From Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis to Fetal Individualized Medicine,” will take place on January 21, 2015, 9:00–10:00 a.m., in Lipsett Amphitheater, at NIH’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.