News & Updates

Racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity—life-threatening maternal complications associated with childbirth—have persisted and increased at high rates among U.S. women, according to an analysis of nearly 20 years of California hospital records funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Nutrition is vital to health, growth, and development through all stages of life. Poor nutrition causes health problems and can contribute to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and other diseases. NIH recently released a draft of its first-ever Strategic Plan for NIH Nutrition Research to focus efforts in advancing the scientific understanding of interactions between diet, nutritional status, biological processes, and the environment.

For women in resource-poor settings, taking a certain daily nutritional supplement before conception or in early pregnancy may provide enough of a boost to improve growth of the fetus, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Newborns infected with herpes simplex virus (HSV) can be appropriately treated with acyclovir, a drug typically prescribed to adults for the treatment of HSV infections.

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy could permanently slow metabolism and lead to weight gain in later life, according to the results of a mouse study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The increasing rate in the United States of severe maternal morbidity—life-threatening maternal childbirth complications—may not be accounted for by the simultaneous increase in known risk factors for these complications, suggests an analysis of California hospital records funded by the National Institutes of Health. To reduce the rate of severe maternal morbidity, more research is needed to identify additional risk factors and other potential causes for the increase, the authors concluded.

Health experts recommend the seasonal flu shot for pregnant women.

Contrary to earlier studies, a National Institutes of Health funded analysis of records from more than 88,000 pregnancies in which women took the anti-nausea drug ondansetron found no increased risk for newborn heart malformations and only a slightly increased risk for cleft lip and palate.

As 2018 winds down, a new slideshow highlights a selection of initiatives, therapies, and scientific advances supported by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

In 2018, researchers funded by NICHD made significant progress in advancing the health and well-being of infants, children, teenagers, and adults across the United States and around the world.

Maternal adipokines—molecules produced by fat cells—influence fetal growth and newborn length, birthweight, and proportion of body fat.

The initiative seeks to improve treatment and care of infants and children who were exposed to opioids in the womb.

In studies of mice and nonhuman primates, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have used a technique known as RNA interference to reduce high levels of a protein that can cause preeclampsia, a potentially fatal high blood pressure disorder of pregnancy.

Compared to younger mothers, mothers over 35 are at higher risk of death and serious illness if they conceive 6 months or less after the birth of a previous child, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. For mothers of all ages, such short intervals between pregnancies were associated with higher risk for preterm birth and for having infants small for their gestation age.

Collaboration with CDC aimed at evaluating pregnancy initiatives and outcomes

Delaying pushing during the second stage of labor—when the cervix is fully dilated at 10 centimeters—is a common practice at many U.S. hospitals, but it may have no effect on whether pregnant women deliver spontaneously (without a cesarean section or other intervention), according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

NIH led task force submits recommendations on research needs for pregnant and nursing mothers

Neurons absorb and release water when they relay messages throughout the brain, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. Tracking this water movement with imaging technology may one day provide valuable information on normal brain activity, as well as how injury or disease affect brain function.

A blood test conducted as early as the 10th week of pregnancy may help identify women at risk for gestational diabetes, a pregnancy-related condition that poses potentially serious health risks for mothers and infants, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

Healthy first-time mothers whose labor was induced in the 39th week of pregnancy were less likely to deliver by cesarean section, compared to those who waited for labor to begin naturally, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.