News & Updates

Abuse of children and adolescents is a complex international problem that seems to defy simple analysis and easy answers. To understand child abuse and exploitation, and to make an impact on the outcomes of these children, the NICHD is joining the American Psychological Association in marking the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse on November 19.

When autism was first named in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner, it was thought to be a rare condition, occurring in fewer than three children in 10,000. By 1996, the estimated incidence of autism was about 12 cases per 10,000 children—not exactly the rate of a rare disorder.

Infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome have abnormalities in the brainstem, a part of the brain that helps control heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, temperature and arousal, report researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The current study appears in the November 1 Journal of the American Medical Association provides additional evidence that brainstem abnormalities may impair an infant's ability to sense high carbon dioxide and low oxygen levels.

In the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind to date, researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have shown that when stroke survivors who've lost function in one arm are given a unique, two-week rehabilitation regimen that involves restraining their functional arm, they show improvements that last for as long as one year post-treatment.

The National Institutes of Health opened a new health information center today at the Jackson Medical Mall in Jackson, Mississippi, affirming NIH's commitment to providing accurate, up-to-date health information to Mississippi residents.

A version of a gene has been linked to autism in families that have more than one child with the disorder. Inheriting two copies of this version more than doubled a child's risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder, scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have discovered.

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.

A compendium of findings from a study funded by the National Institutes of Health reveals that a child's family life has more influence on a child's development through age four and a half than does a child's experience in child care.

What is the best way to teach kids about science? A new report seeks to help children learn science more effectively by improving the way science is taught in the classroom.

Need information on reading disability? Want to know how much calcium is in a serving of broccoli? Trying to find out how to apply for a research grant to study spinal cord development in zebrafish? Check out http://www.nichd.nih.gov.

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.

Research conducted through the Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research has found that the drug misoprostol provides a safe, convenient, and inexpensive means to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, a major killer of women in developing countries. This finding again highlights that the NICHD’s mission to understand and improve the health of children, adults, and families reaches beyond the United States to include communities worldwide.

Led by Yvonne T. Maddox, deputy director of the NICHD, a delegation from the NIH as well as state and local officials from Mississippi will convene in Jackson this week for a unique outreach event.

The basic research effort to implicate soluble endoglin (sEng) and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt-1) in preeclampsia was led by a coauthor of the current paper, S. Ananth Karumanchi, M.D., a nephrologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Preeclampsia is a disorder of pregnancy that strikes without warning. The condition results when pregnant women develop high blood pressure and protein in the urine. Preeclampsia is estimated to complicate from 3 to 5 percent of all pregnancies.

High levels of two proteins in the blood of pregnant women appear to indicate the subsequent development of preeclampsia, a life-threatening complication of pregnancy, report a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Children who are overweight as toddlers or preschoolers are more likely to be overweight or obese in early adolescence, report researchers in a collaborative study by the NIH and several academic institutions.

The journey of hope to improve the lives of infants born with oxygen deprivation has taken 65 years. Loss of oxygen to the brain may result in death or a lifetime of blindness, mental retardation, or cerebral palsy. In October 2005, Seetha Shankaran and her colleagues in the NICHD Neonatal Research Network reported that lowering a newborn’s body temperature a few degrees could reduce the likelihood of death or disability associated with depleted oxygen.

Every day, physicians and new parents must struggle with the type of care to provide extremely low birthweight infants, the smallest, most delicate category of preterm infants. These infants are born in the 22nd through the 25th week of pregnancy—far earlier than the 40 weeks of a full term pregnancy. Most die soon after birth. Although some survive and reach adulthood unaffected, others experience some degree of life-long disability.