News

As scientific understanding of the disease and its mechanisms continues to advance, we can find reasons to hope. Where once there were no treatment options, we now have multiple regimens that can help to manage the disease. Where once the disease spread seemingly without boundaries, we now have ways to prevent that spread. Researchers, health care providers, and communities around the world remain dedicated to preventing, treating, managing, and even curing AIDS.

Roughly 19 percent of young adults may have high blood pressure, according to an analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which is supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Infants born in the 37th or 38th week of pregnancy have a higher risk of dying before age 1 than do infants born between 39 and 40 weeks, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the March of Dimes.

Six new white papers outlining scientific opportunities for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) are now available on the institute's Web site for public comment.

Disabilities—from a disorder, such as spina bifida; a health condition, such as a stroke; or an event, such as a motor vehicle collision—are simply a fact of life. Nearly all of us are affected by disabilities in some way, whether directly, as one of the estimated 54 million people who reported a disability in the United States last year, or indirectly, as a caregiver, family member, or friend of someone with a disability.

The National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health has released "Embryo", a new app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. The NICHD collaborated on the development of the app, which provides access to digitized representations of serial sections of early stage human embryos for mobile devices, photo micrographs of early stage embryo development, fertilization videos, and a pregnancy calculator.

The National Institutes of Health has provided approximately $30 million over a five year period to fund a network of centers to advance medical rehabilitation research. The centers provide researchers with access to new technologies and resources.

An inexpensive instructional program to teach routine newborn care skills to midwives in Zambia resulted in a substantial reduction in the death rate of infants in the first week of life, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Second Lecture in This Series Features NICHD Grantee Dr. Esther Duflo.

Gisela T. Storz, deputy director of the NICHD Cell Biology and Metabolism Program, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems.

A National Institutes of Health study has found that progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone, reduced the rate of preterm birth before the 33rd week of pregnancy by 45 percent among one category of at risk women.

For its part in this special month, the NICHD supports research to inform outreach and training programs for parents and people who care for abused and neglected children According to data collected through the DHHS National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System and reported in Child Maltreatment 2009, an estimated 763,000 children were exposed to incidents of child abuse and neglect in 2009. These data translat

The 2010 DIR Annual Report illustrates the impressive accomplishments that result when dozens of PIs, more than 350 trainees, and approximately 1,200 staff all work toward the same goal of improving human health.

The first two of nine white papers outlining a scientific vision for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) are now available online for public comment.

Recently, scientists in an NIH study reported that a surgical procedure to repair a common birth defect of the spine, if undertaken while a baby is still in the uterus, greatly reduces the need to divert, or shunt, fluid away from the brain, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health and four research institutions. The fetal surgical procedure also increases the chances that a child will be able to walk without crutches or other devices.

Among the smallest preterm infants, those born as triplets are at greater risk than single born infants or twins of dying or developing a disability before their second birthday, according a study by a research network of the National Institutes of Health.

In many ways, Blaine Grenon is a typical 15-year-old—he hangs out with his friends, likes pizza, and is planning for college. But in other ways, Blaine is far from ordinary.

Pregnant women who are unaware that they have HIV miss the chance for drug treatment that can benefit not only their own health, but could also prevent them from transmitting the virus to their infants. When HIV is not diagnosed until women go into labor, their infants are usually treated soon after birth with the anti HIV drug zidovudine (ZDV), to prevent the infants from becoming infected with the virus.

It is often said that good things come to those who wait. Research shows that this is especially true for infants—every week in the womb makes a big difference in a child's development and health. And members of the NICHD’s National Child and Maternal Health Education Program (NCMHEP) want all health care providers to know and understand this fact.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a key step in the establishment of a pregnancy. Their discovery shows how the hormone progesterone suppresses the growth of the uterus's lining so that a fertilized egg can implant in the uterus.