News & Updates

A child born with a structural birth defect has a higher risk of developing childhood cancer. Researchers aren’t sure why such a link exists, but thanks to the NIH Common Fund’s Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program, commonly called Kids First, scientists now have resources and clues to decode this connection.

Young children who live close to a major roadway are twice as likely to score lower on tests of communications skills, compared to those who live farther away from a major roadway, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

Children are more likely to be overprescribed antibiotics for colds, sinus infections and sore throats during telemedicine visits than during in-person visits to primary care providers or urgent care facilities, suggests a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The drug colchicine, used to treat the arthritic condition gout, could potentially reduce complications accompanying metabolic syndrome, a combination of high blood pressure, high blood sugar and other conditions that increase the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.

On April 8, 2019, join community organizations and healthcare professionals to discuss strategies for reducing the rising rate of maternal deaths in the United States.

NICHD’s Amir Gandjbakhche, Ph.D., leads a team that is pioneering the use of portable imaging technology to study human development and health conditions, including brain injuries and disorders.

Secretary of Health and Human Services renews task force for an additional two years. Task force members will offer guidance and advice on implementing 15 recommendations they submitted in September 2018.

Researchers have successfully frozen testicular tissue from monkeys too young to produce sperm and used this tissue to produce a pregnancy resulting in live, healthy offspring. The finding is an early step in the development of a method to store testicular tissue for children before they undergo fertility-destroying treatment for cancer or other disorders. The research team was led by Kyle E. Orwig, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Now available in DASH: Researchers can request access to NICHD biospecimens for secondary analyses.

An analysis of a previous study has found more evidence to support giving the steroid betamethasone to pregnant women at risk of late-preterm delivery (between 34 and 36 weeks of gestation), according to a network funded by the National Institutes of Health. Hospital stays for infants whose mothers received the drug cost less on average, compared to stays for infants whose mothers did not take the drug.

Obese and overweight young children whose mothers took DHA—a fat found in fish oil—during pregnancy had lower average blood pressure than those whose mothers did not take the supplement during pregnancy, according to a study funded by the NICHD.

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.

A 5-minute delay in clamping the umbilical cord after birth may benefit an infant’s developing brain, suggests a small study funded by the National Institutes of Health. By 4 months of age, the brains of infants in the study who underwent delayed clamping had more myelin, a brain-insulating material, compared to those whose cords were clamped within 20 seconds.

NIH study also suggests handling a cell phone doubles teen driving crash risk.

The anti-inflammatory properties of testosterone appear to protect male mouse embryos from certain types of DNA damage and inflammation that are fatal to female mouse embryos, according to a recent NICHD-supported study.

A new protocol could help emergency room physicians to rule out life-threatening bacterial infections among infants up to 2 months of age who have fevers, potentially eliminating the need for spinal taps, unnecessary antibiotic treatments or expensive hospital stays.

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.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have linked elevated levels of an immune system hormone to the adult cognitive decline that often occurs in people who experienced abuse as children. The hormone, interleukin-6 (IL-6), is involved in the swelling or inflammation produced in response to an injury. The researchers also found that child abuse victims who have a history of depression are more likely to experience cognitive decline as adults.

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.