News & Updates

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers and their colleagues have developed a “placenta-on-a-chip” to study the inner workings of the human placenta and its role in pregnancy.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched a Spanish-language website that provides free information on health topics, including maternal and infant care, obesity, HIV/AIDS, fertility/infertility, and pregnancy.

NICHD conducts and supports research on health issues that are unique to women and on how certain diseases affect men and women differently.

The NICHD’s Division of Intramural Population Health Research (DIPHR) provides research updates in its newly released annual report for 2014.

In 2014, NICHD launched the Human Placenta Project (HPP), a new initiative to revolutionize our understanding of the human placenta and its role in health and disease.

The National Institutes of Health has dedicated $41.5 million for an initiative to understand and monitor the development of the human placenta during pregnancy. The funding will support the development of new technologies to assess the health of the placenta as it grows and matures, with the ultimate goal of improving the health of mothers and children.

Women who deliver a stillbirth—but who have no history of depression—may be at a higher risk for long-lasting depression, conclude researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The depression may last beyond the six months most people require to recover from a major loss and persist for as long as 36 months.

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.

For HIV-infected women in good immune health, taking a three-drug regimen during pregnancy prevents mother-to-child HIV transmission more effectively than taking one drug during pregnancy, another during labor and two more after giving birth, an international clinical trial has found.

When researchers triggered an immune response in the wombs of pregnant mice, their offspring showed signs of brain damage that lasted well into adulthood. The animal’s hippocampus—that’s the part of the brain responsible for memory and spatial orientation—was smaller, and they had poor motor skills and behavioral issues, like hyperactivity.

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.

While the prevalence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in the United States has decreased by 50% over the last 20 years, SIDS remains the leading cause of death for U.S. infants 1 month to 1 year of age.1 This SIDS Awareness Month, the NICHD highlights SIDS resources and research to help parents, caregivers, and medical professionals reduce the risk of SIDS.

A study by a National Institutes of Health research network calls into question plans to increase access to steroid treatment for pregnant women in low resource settings at high risk for preterm birth. The study concluded that the treatment—a standard, life-saving practice in high income countries such as the United States—could potentially cause harm in low resource settings where many births take place outside the advance care hospitals that are standard in high income countries.

It’s normal for most women to gain weight during pregnancy, but gaining too much weight can pose serious health risks for mother and baby. Now researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health have found that an integrated program offering support and nutrition counseling succeeds where the traditional approaches failed and helps keep women from adding too much weight during pregnancy.

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.

This August, we focused on pregnancy—providing information, tips, and resources, plus a chance for members of the public to chat with experts over a Twitter #pregnancychat.

Aspirin is generally not recommended during pregnancy, as it can lead to bleeding problems for both mother and baby. But for some women, the benefits of a daily low-dose aspirin after the first trimester may outweigh the risk.

A series of studies by an NICHD researcher suggests that women who maintain a healthy diet and exercise before they become pregnant are less likely to develop gestational diabetes mellitus, a type of diabetes that occurs only in pregnant women.

Ensuring the health and wellbeing of pregnant women and newborns is central to the NICHD mission. Scientists supported by our Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch (PPB) conduct research related to improving care for pregnant women and newborns, preventing preterm labor and birth and other birth complications, and treating diseases in newborns.