News

Women and young girls who experience delays in diagnosing a premature, menopause-like condition face increased risk of low bone density, according to new research by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. A delay in diagnosing the condition, called primary ovarian insufficiency, may make women more susceptible to osteoporosis and fractures later in life, the researchers concluded.

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.

The pineal gland -- integral to setting the body's sleep and wake cycles -- may be involved in a broad range of bodily functions, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.

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.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation and founder and honorary chairperson of Special Olympics, has been a leader in the worldwide struggle to improve and enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities for most of her life. Her vision and unrelenting efforts helped to establish the NICHD in 1962. In recognition of her dedication, Congress passed Public Law 110-154 on December 21, 2007, renaming the Institute as the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Boys with autism and autism spectrum disorder had higher levels of hormones involved with growth in comparison to boys who do not have autism, reported researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the University Of Cincinnati College Of Medicine.

An NIH roadmap initiative will provide a total of nearly $8 million in funding to seven institutions that can train researchers in multidisciplinary research-research involving teams of specialists from a variety of disciplines.

A team of U.S. and Irish researchers has come one step closer to understanding why a high proportion of the population is genetically at risk for neural tube defects, according to a genetic study by researchers in Ireland and at two of the National Institutes of Health, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the National Human Genome Research Institute.

A team of researchers has discovered a gene for Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, a disorder consisting of mental retardation, heart defects and a number of physical abnormalities.

Newborns whose mothers drank alcohol heavily during pregnancy had damage to the nerves in the arms and legs, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will conduct a large study to determine whether a new surgery to correct spina bifida in the womb is safer and more effective than the traditional surgery to correct the disorder, which takes place a few days after birth.

Pregnant women who have low blood levels of the vitamin folate are more likely to have early miscarriages than are pregnant women who have adequate folate levels, according to a study of Swedish women by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health have completed the first successful effort to introduce a new gene into the unfertilized eggs of rhesus monkeys, a member of the family of mammals that includes human beings.