News & Updates

Hypertension and prehypertension may be undiagnosed and untreated among U.S. children and youth, despite repeated high blood pressure readings in doctor’s offices, according to an analysis of nearly 400,000 medical records.

NICHD had a very productive year in 2016. Staff responded quickly to Zika virus and led the effort to develop the NIH Research Plan on Rehabilitation. The following snapshots are examples of the many advances made possible by NICHD this year.

NICHD Director Dr. Diana Bianchi shares some thoughts about joining NICHD.

Read a selection of past Spotlights featuring the stories of kids and adults whose lives have been enhanced by NICHD-supported research through new treatments, improved patient engagement, and new prevention and intervention campaigns.

A two-drug preventive treatment greatly reduces the severity of malaria during pregnancy, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The treatment provides an alternative for many parts of Africa where the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum has grown resistant to standard treatment.

Only 25 years ago, it was rare to find drug labels with dispensing information specific to children. That’s because pharmaceutical companies rarely, if ever, conducted the research necessary to develop such instructions. As a result, health care providers often gave children smaller doses of adult medicines, without evidence of how exactly the children would react.

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

Over the past year, NICHD contributed to numerous scientific advances and key initiatives.

NICHD researchers speak about a recent study testing the drug lithium in children. For years, doctors have prescribed the drug to treat adults with bipolar disorder, but until now, it has not been studied in children.

The drug-susceptible form of Staphylococcus aureus, a common bacterium that inhabits the body, may account for a greater number of infections among hospitalized newborns than the antibiotic-resistant form, according to researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

HIV-infected children exposed in the womb to nevirapine, a drug used to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, can safely and effectively transition to efavirenz, a similar drug recommended for older children and adults, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Cathy Spong became NICHD’s acting director on October 1, 2015. Here she shares her plans for the year and her thoughts on what makes NICHD so unique.

Infants exposed in the womb to a drug used to treat HIV and reduce the transmission of HIV from mother to child, may have lower bone mineral content than those exposed to other anti-HIV drugs, according to a National Institutes of Health study.

Treatment with clomiphene, a standard therapy for couples with unexplained infertility, results in more live births than treatment with a potential alternative, letrozole, according to a study of more than 900 couples conducted by a National Institutes of Health research network.

The placenta is a temporary organ that connects a mother and her fetus. It performs multiple functions, acting as the fetus’s lungs, kidneys, and liver, as well as the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems. It produces hormones to help maintain pregnancy and support fetal development, and it protects the fetus from the mother’s immune system. There is even a role for the placenta in determining the timing of birth.

​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.

​​Most children with HIV who have low levels of a key immune cell eventually recover levels of this cell after beginning treatment, according to a study by researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. ​

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have entered into an agreement with biotechnology company Vtesse, Inc., of Gaithersburg, Maryland, to develop treatments for Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) and other lysosomal storage disorders.

Using a teaspoon or a tablespoon to give children medicine doubled parents’ chances of giving an incorrect dose, according to researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

NIH-funded study finds low birthweight could reduce overall effectiveness of drug treatments.