Infants born to women who used the anti-HIV drug tenofovir as part of an anti-HIV drug regimen during pregnancy do not weigh less at birth and are not of shorter length than infants born to women who used anti-HIV drug regimens that do not include tenofovir during pregnancy, according to findings from a National Institutes of Health network study.
News
NICHD issues News Releases and Media Advisories to the news media. Spotlight and Research Feature articles explain NICHD research findings and public health issues to the general public. An Item of Interest is a short announcement of relevant information, such as a notable staff change.
NIH Study Finds Women Spend Longer in Labor Now Than 50 Years Ago
Authors S. Katherine Laughon and Branch Ware were available last week for a news briefing to explain the results of their recent study on changing labor patterns.
Endometriosis Awareness Month & NICHD Research
In 2011, the NICHD-led Endometriosis: Natural History, Diagnosis, and Outcomes (ENDO) study found that 11 percent of a group of women with no symptoms of endometriosis actually had the disorder. If this finding is applied to all the women in the United States, the number of American women with endometriosis would well exceed previous estimates of 5 million.
NICHD HIV/AIDS Research & National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
HIV/AIDS continues to be a serious public health concern. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 290,000 women were living with HIV in the United States in 2008.
Release of the 2011 Division of Intramural Research (DIR) Annual Report
The newly released 2011 DIR Annual Report reviews the latest basic, clinical, and translational research being pursued by the staff scientists within DIR at the NICHD. Contributing to this effort are 79 tenured and tenure-track investigators and approximately 1,200 administrative and research staff. In 2011, DIR project areas ranged from vaccine development to genomics, from reproduction to regenerative medicine, and from the neurosciences and early human development to biophysics and imaging.
Vitamin D shrinks fibroid tumors in rats
Treatment with vitamin D reduced the size of uterine fibroids in laboratory rats predisposed to developing the benign tumors, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.
NIH Study Links High Levels of Cadmium, Lead in Blood to Pregnancy Delay
Higher blood levels of cadmium in females, and higher blood levels of lead in males, delayed pregnancy in couples trying to become pregnant, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other academic research institutions.
High Animal Fat Diet Increases Gestational Diabetes Risk
Women who consumed a diet high in animal fat and cholesterol before pregnancy were at higher risk for gestational diabetes than women whose diets were lower in animal fat and cholesterol, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Harvard University.
Audio Briefing: Annual Cost of Fibroid Tumors in the United States
Uterine fibroids are common non-cancerous tumors that affect the majority of American women at some point in their lives. Fibroids may be painful and result in such reproductive problems as infertility, miscarriage, and early labor.
Study Shows Additional Benefits of Progesterone in Reducing Preterm Birth Risk
An analysis of five previous studies has uncovered additional evidence of the effectiveness of progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone, in reducing the rate of preterm birth among a high-risk category of women.
NICHD Recruits Associate Director for Extramural Research
The NICHD is conducting a national search for an Associate Director for Extramural Research. This position offers a unique and exciting opportunity for an extremely capable individual to develop and implement an overall vision for the Institute's extramural research activities, which include more than 3,100 projects and involve 130 staff members.
Inefficient Developing World Stoves Contribute to 2 Million Deaths a Year
An international effort to replace smoky, inefficient household stoves that people commonly use in lower and middle income countries with clean, affordable, fuel efficient stoves could save nearly 2 million lives each year, according to experts from the National Institutes of Health.
Two NICHD Grantees Awarded National Medal of Science
Two grantees of the NICHD's Reproductive Sciences Branch were among the seven researchers named by President Obama as recipients of the National Medal of Science, an honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers, and inventors.
Violence During Pregnancy Linked to Reduced Birth Weight
Pregnant women who are assaulted by an intimate partner are at increased risk of giving birth to infants of reduced weight, according to a population-level analysis of domestic violence supported by the National Institutes of Health.
NIH Scientist who Advanced Understanding of Preeclampsia Passes Away
An NIH scientist whose landmark collaborations led to a major advance in understanding a potentially fatal disorder of pregnancy has passed away.
NIH-Funded Study Proposes New Method to Predict Fertility Rates
Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new statistical technique to forecast changes in fertility rates. The new method mathematically compensates for uncertainty and is expected to allow governments to plan more reliably for the infrastructure and social services needed to accommodate large-scale population changes.
NIH Meeting on Vulvodynia: Setting a Research Agenda
Although the exact number of women with vulvodynia is unknown, researchers estimate that 18 percent of American women from all racial backgrounds experience symptoms of vulvodynia at some point in their lives. The evidence suggests that most women either do not seek help at all, or go from doctor to doctor seeking diagnosis and treatment without answers.
Zinc 'Sparks' Fly from Egg within Minutes of Fertilization
At fertilization, a massive release of the metal zinc appears to set the fertilized egg cell on the path to dividing and growing into an embryo, according to the results of animal studies supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Women Sought for NIH Study of Infertility Disorder
Young women in the Washington, D.C., area who have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are encouraged to take part in a study at the National Institutes of Health on the possible role of the adrenal glands in the disorder.
NIH Researchers Slow Immune Attack on Ovaries in Mice
In a study of mice, researchers have slowed an immune system attack on the ovaries. The mice developed a disorder resembling primary ovarian insufficiency (POI), a menopause-like condition that affects women under the age of 40, sometimes years or even decades before normal menopause. The study was conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).