News & Updates

Two studies supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide compelling evidence that the amount of HIV in a pregnant woman's blood, known as the maternal HIV viral load, is the prime risk factor for transmitting the virus to her baby.

Women with preeclampsia, a potentially fatal complication of pregnancy, appear to have an imbalance of two key chemical compounds that control blood pressure, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) published in the July 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

America's children are, on average, doing better in several respects than they have in recent years, according to the third annual Federal report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being.

Children attending child care centers that meet professional standards for quality score higher on school readiness and language tests and have fewer behavioral problems than their peers in centers not meeting such standards, according to a study appearing in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have discovered a gene that controls the development of the hippocampus, a brain structure crucial for learning and memory.

Homicide, accidental suffocation, motor vehicle accidents, fire, drowning, and choking were the major causes of injury-related death for children less than a year of age, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

An investigational drug that helps insulin to function more efficiently appears to combat infertility in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common cause of female infertility, according to a research team funded in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

At a press event held today at the Vanderbilt YMCA in New York City, Tipper Gore, national spokesperson for the Back to Sleep Campaign, announced that Pampers has joined the fight against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of death among babies ages one to 12 months old.

At a press event held today at the Vanderbilt YMCA in New York City, Tipper Gore, national spokesperson for the Back to Sleep Campaign, announced that Pampers has joined the fight against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the leading cause of death among babies ages one to 12 months old.

In a groundbreaking new study, 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 estrogen alters brain activation patterns in postmenopausal women as they perform memory tasks.

The largest, most comprehensive analysis of its kind has found that 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 affiliated with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) study of early child care will report that, in general, day care in the United States is "fair," but not outstanding.

Researchers in a large network funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have determined the most effective of a series of common infertility treatments.

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).