News & Updates

Fetuses with enlarged ventricles—the fluid-filled cavities inside the brain—may be less likely than their counterparts to benefit from surgery in the womb to treat spina bifida, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health.

NIH seeks input on a proposed new research program to assess biological, chemical, psychosocial, and other environmental influences on child health outcomes. Join one of NIH’s webinars to learn more.

NICHD supports a variety of research projects and networks that are useful to neuroscientists. Find a detailed list here.

NICHD conducts and supports research on health issues that are unique to women and on how certain diseases affect men and women differently.

The NICHD’s Division of Intramural Population Health Research (DIPHR) provides research updates in its newly released annual report for 2014.

In the last year, research conducted and supported by the NICHD shed new light on the causes of and potential treatments for a number of birth defects.

The National Institutes of Health has launched a subsite of DS-Connect: The Down Syndrome Registry for researchers, clinicians, and other professionals with a scientific interest in Down syndrome to access de-identified data from the registry.

The antiretroviral drugs used to keep HIV at bay are an unqualified success at preventing the spread of the virus from mother to child. The drugs are not only essential for maintaining the health of a pregnant woman with HIV, they have also nearly eliminated the transmission of HIV to her baby. Among U.S. women, the likelihood of a mother passing the virus on to her child is now less than 1%.

Nearly 120,000 babies are born with a birth defect* each year in the United States—one baby every 4.5 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At first glance, it’s hard to see many similarities among people, mice, and zebrafish. But much of what we know about the earliest stages of human development and birth defects come from studying the development of these animals.

The next NICHD Director’s Lecture at the NIH will feature Diana Bianchi, M.D., from Tufts University School of Medicine. Her talk, titled “Changing Paradigms: From Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis to Fetal Individualized Medicine,” will take place on January 21, 2015, 9:00–10:00 a.m., in Lipsett Amphitheater, at NIH’s Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have entered into an agreement with biotechnology company Vtesse, Inc., of Gaithersburg, Maryland, to develop treatments for Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) and other lysosomal storage disorders.

The NIH recently released Down Syndrome Directions: The National Institutes of Health Research Plan on Down Syndrome, an updated strategy to advance research related to Down syndrome.

More than 50 million Americans, about 1 in 5 people, are living with a disability. People with disabilities tend to be less physically active than people without disabilities and have higher rates of corresponding health problems such as obesity, heart disease, hypertension and stroke.

Researchers working with mice have uncovered a potential clue to polydactyly—a birth defect involving extra fingers on the hand or extra toes on the feet. The researchers have found that a mouse version of polydactyly results from a malfunction of the cellular machinery that processes one of the cell’s internal transportation vehicles.

Ensuring the health and wellbeing of pregnant women and newborns is central to the NICHD mission. Scientists supported by our Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch (PPB) conduct research related to improving care for pregnant women and newborns, preventing preterm labor and birth and other birth complications, and treating diseases in newborns.

Epidemiology, the study of patterns and causes of health and disease in populations, is foundational to public health. Scientists in the NICHD's Epidemiology Branch apply epidemiologic approaches to answer questions about infertility, menstrual problems, birth defects, and other health issues.

Alfred Nobel once said, “The observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.” For some NICHD-supported researchers, this search for similarities led in an unexpected direction.

During Trisomy Awareness Month in March, the NICHD joins other organizations to raise awareness about trisomy conditions and the challenges they can pose to individuals and families.

When the NICHD was founded in 1962, one of its first charges was to improve our understanding of birth defects. Now, more than 50 years later, birth defects research continues to be a core focus of the Institute.