A baby's sleep position is the best predictor of a misshapen skull condition known as deformational plagiocephaly - or the development of flat spots on an infant's head - according to findings reported by Arizona State University scientists in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics. [More]

"Now that we know how the body defends itself against the Chlamydia bacteria, we can develop a vaccine that optimises that defence. We have a basic understanding of how the vaccine could work, but some work remains to be done. We believe that it will take a few years before the vaccine becomes a reality," says researcher Ellen Marks, the author of the thesis. [More]

When a fetus is smaller than expected for the number of weeks of pregnancy, due to associated problems like a poorly developed heart, health concerns as severe as brain damage can result. [More]

Three Singapore biomedical institutions have launched a major, long-term study of pregnant mothers and their fetuses as well as infant children to determine just how profoundly environmental factors early in life influence the onset of diseases such as obesity and diabetes in later years. [More]

Just one in three women gives birth after a single IVF attempt, but the cumulative chance of a live birth increases with each cycle - where women are offered three cycles nearly two thirds go on to have babies, reveals a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. [More]

Just one in three women gives birth after a single IVF attempt, but the cumulative chance of a live birth increases with each cycle - where women are offered three cycles nearly two thirds go on to have babies, reveals a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. [More]

From their very first days, newborns' cries already bear the mark of the language their parents speak, reveals a new study published online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The findings suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, and certainly long before their first babble or coo. [More]

In the quest to expand access to high quality prenatal care to communities with limited healthcare services, GE Global Research, the technology development arm for the General Electric Company, has been awarded a two-year, $1.2 million project under the federal stimulus program from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a low-cost transducer for portable ultrasound systems that maintains the highest degree of image quality. [More]

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership introduced a new version of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" which provides federal funds for elective abortion, reauthorizes Indian Health Care without adding the Hyde Amendment, and mandates providing information about physician-assisted suicide in certain states. [More]

At a U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, "[h]ealth ministers from around the world have agreed that swift action must be taken to reduce the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth," the BBC reports. While there appeared to be some agreement "that family planning was the most cost-effective way of [tackling] the problem ... no unanimous declaration was adopted at the Addis Ababa talks," according to the news service (10/26). [More]

Adult male monkeys exposed to cocaine while in the womb have poor impulse control and may be more vulnerable to drug abuse than female monkeys, even a decade or more after the exposure, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The findings could lead to a better understanding of human drug abuse. [More]

Professor Frederic Amant of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven) directs research into the treatment of cancer in pregnant women and the consequences of such treatment on foetal development. In her PhD dissertation on chemotherapy during pregnancy, Kristel Van Calsteren presents new scientific discoveries. [More]

Exposure to a combination of excess stress hormones and chemicals while in the womb could affect a man's fertility in later life, a study suggests. [More]

Researchers say a new development in cord blood transplants for inherited metabolic disorders may be curative for some babies who are treated while still in the womb. [More]

A new study from the medical university Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm shows that children born with low birth weight are at a higher risk of developing asthma later in life. The study, which is published in the journal Pediatrics, is based on data on the incidence of asthma in 10,918 twins from the Swedish Twin Registry. [More]