News & Updates

Text4baby is a free service that delivers evidence-based health information about pregnancy and baby’s first year directly to the cell phones or mobile devices of moms-to-be and new moms.

Women who experience preeclampsia, a serious complication of pregnancy, may have an increased risk for reduced thyroid functioning later in life, report a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

A National Institutes of Health network study provided the first conclusive evidence that treating pregnant women who have even the mildest form of gestational diabetes can reduce the risk of common birth complications among infants, as well as blood pressure disorders among mothers.

New guidelines to assist health care workers in preventing and treating the secondary infections that can afflict U.S. children exposed to, or infected with, HIV, were published by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have completed a critical first step in the eventual development of a technique to retain fertility in women with cancer who require treatments that might otherwise make them unable to have children.

Understanding the changing needs of the nation's children and the conditions they live in can play an important role in helping the country thrive both today and in the future. To create a comprehensive picture of children's lives, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, of which the NICHD is a member, compiles data on indicators of health and well-being for children and youth and reports its findings every year.

Women can increase their chances for a healthy pregnancy by eating right, exercising, not smoking, and getting early medical care, says a podcast featuring a National Institutes of Health obstetrician who oversees research on pregnancy and birth.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and other institutions have identified in mice two proteins essential for ovulation to take place.

With its rolling green hills, rural Duplin County, North Carolina, couldn’t be more different from urban Queens, New York, an ethnically and racially diverse county in the United States.

Preterm infants born to mothers receiving intravenous magnesium sulfate--a common treatment to delay labor--are less likely to develop cerebral palsy than are preterm infants whose mothers do not receive it, report researchers in a large National Institutes of Health research network.

Pregnant women with blood sugar levels in the higher range of normal--but not high enough to be considered diabetes--are more likely than women with lower blood sugar levels to give birth to babies at risk for many of the same problems seen in babies born to women with diabetes during pregnancy, according to a study funded in large part by the National Institutes of Health.

An intensive educational program for physicians and midwives involving 19 hospitals in Argentina and Uruguay dramatically reduced the rate of postpartum hemorrhage, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

NIH Scientists Offer Explanation for Winter Flu Season Stability of Virus' Membrane at Cold Temperatures May Ease Winter Spread.

Findings from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study indicate that rates of tobacco use during pregnancy, as well as exposure of pregnant women and their young children to secondhand smoke, are significant threats to health in several low and middle-income countries.

In 2006, there were 73.7 million children from ages 0–17 in the United States, representing 25 percent of the population. Knowing the characteristics of this important segment is important not only for the country’s well-being today, but also for its vitality in the future.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found that older mothers with normal, full-term pregnancies-particularly first-time older mothers-were more likely to undergo Caesarean delivery than were younger women with similarly low-risk pregnancies.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental vaccine that reduces stillbirths among rodents born to mothers infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV)--a common virus that can also cause mental retardation and hearing loss in newborn children who were infected in early fetal life.

Metformin, a drug used to treat diabetes and thought to hold great promise at overcoming the infertility associated with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), is less useful for helping women with the condition achieve pregnancy than is the standard treatment with the infertility drug clomiphene, report researchers in an NIH research network.

The drug misoprostol provides a safe, convenient, and inexpensive means to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, a major killer of women in developing countries. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Missouri, India's Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, and the National Institutes of Health.

The Institute’s mission to understand and improve the health of children, adults, and families reaches beyond the United States to include communities worldwide. As part of this mission, the NICHD and the Fogarty International Center are pleased to sponsor the 8th Annual Lawton Chiles International Lecture on Maternal and Child Health in the Americas.