News & Updates

A study appearing in the October 2001 issue of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics reported that premature infants who sleep on their backs gain the ability to lift their heads at a slightly slower rate than do premature infants who sleep on their stomachs.

The well-being of America's children has improved on several fronts, according to the Federal government's fifth annual report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2001.

Breast feeding appears to be a minor factor in reducing the likelihood of childhood overweight, according to a study by the National Institute of Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and two other Federal agencies.

Episodes of prolonged cessation of breathing or prolonged slowing of heart rate in infants-- believed to be potential signs of risk for SIDS--primarily occur before the developmental age when most SIDS deaths occur, according to a study funded by 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.

A treatment commonly prescribed to reduce the risk of chronic lung disease in extremely premature infants does not reduce the risk of death or chronic lung disease in these infants and may increase the risk for perforation of the intestines, according to a study by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network.

The largest, most comprehensive study of its kind to date has found that women who have undergone tubal sterilization are at no greater risk for menstrual abnormalities than are women who have not had the procedure, settling a debate within the medical community.

Commemorating SIDS Awareness Month, HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala and U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher today unveiled a resource kit for reducing the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in African American communities.

A shorter course of AZT therapy than currently prescribed for HIV-infected pregnant women may allow women in developing countries to afford the treatment that can reduce their babies' chances of contracting AIDS, but at a much lower cost, according to a study in the October 5 New England Journal of Medicine.

American children are less likely to die during childhood, less likely to live in poverty, less likely to be at risk for hunger, and less likely to give birth during adolescence, according to the fourth annual report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2000.

A team of researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has found that infants who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) have abnormalities in several parts of the brainstem.

Parents and other caregivers are more likely to place infants to sleep on their backs when advised to do so by their infants' doctors, according to the latest analysis of the National Infant Sleep Position Study (NISP).

Adding two substances found in breast milk to infant formula boosted the average intelligence scores in a group of 18-month-old children significantly, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) jointly will support an international research network to improve the health of women and children throughout the world.

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.

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.

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).

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).

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).