News & Updates

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), leader of the Back to Sleep campaign, today is issuing a winter alert, once again, urging parents and caretakers to place babies on their backs to sleep to reduce the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

An infant's chances of becoming a homicide victim during the first year of life are greatest if he or she is the second or later born child of a teenage mother, according to an analysis of birth and death certificates by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Secretin is a polypeptide neurotransmitter (chemical messenger), one of the hormones that controls digestion.

To help advance research in women's reproductive health, twelve centers have been awarded a total of $4 million to support early research careers in the field of obstetrics and gynecology.

Having high blood pressure for at least four years before getting pregnant increases a woman's chances of developing the dangerous condition known as preeclampsia, according to a study published in the September 3 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health today joined North American Vaccine in announcing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given its approval to manufacture and market a new DTaP (diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis) vaccine for use in immunization against these diseases.

National efforts to reduce the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) by placing healthy infants on their backs or sides to sleep appear to have been extremely successful, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), reported in the July 22 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The federal government issued its second annual report today on the well-being of America's 70 million children, revealing some good news about their overall health and educational achievements.

The largest, most comprehensive analysis of its kind has found pregnant women infected with HIV can reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their infants by about 50 percent if they deliver by elective cesarean section--before they have gone into labor and before their membranes have ruptured, according to a study led by a researcher at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have taken the first preliminary steps for gene therapy of osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a diverse group of disorders caused by various defects in type I collagen, a major component of bone.

A new study conducted by researchers in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network suggests that the steroid dexamethasone, which is commonly prescribed to help premature infants get off mechanical ventilators, may have serious side effects.

The first large scale study of its kind shows that effective screening for Down syndrome is possible before the 14th week of pregnancy--earlier than previous screening regimens have permitted, according to a study appearing in the April 2 New England Journal of Medicine.

A new panel unveiled today will study the effectiveness of various approaches to teaching children how to read and to report on the best ways to apply these findings in classrooms and at home.

A Yale research team funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has used sophisticated brain imaging technology to show that there is decreased functioning while performing reading tasks in certain brain regions of individuals with the most common form of dyslexia.

Researchers have long known that melatonin--a key hormone that regulates the body's circadian clock--rapidly disappears from the blood after exposure to bright light.

A new study has demonstrated that a potential new therapy, thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), given in combination with the steroid hormone glucocorticoid to mothers who were threatening to deliver a very preterm infant, was no more effective in improving their newborn infants' outcome than glucocorticoid treatment alone.

Vaccinating against cholera in African refugee camps can save lives, prevent disease, and possibly save costs, according to an economic analysis conducted by a team of researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and other institutions.

Scientists at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have developed an experimental vaccine against Escherichia coli O157, the pathogenic bacterium that causes severe food poisoning and that prompted the recall last year of millions of pounds of ground beef.

Premature ovarian failure (formerly known as premature menopause), increases a woman's risk of bone loss, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

Fertile men are needed to participate in a large study of male fertility and infertility.