Pregnancy News and Research

Latest Pregnancy News and Research

The Phthalate Esters Panel responds to claims about the health effects of phthalates

A new report by Environment California Research & Policy Center makes several claims about the health effects of phthalates contained in consumer products that are unsupported by the science.

25 Jun 2004

New risk factors associated with inflammatory bowel disease

Health researchers at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Otago University, have found evidence of new risk factors associated with a debilitating illness called Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

24 Jun 2004

Eating fish during pregnancy produces children with better language and communication skills

A new study of children in Bristol has shown that women who ate fish regularly during pregnancy had children with better language and communication skills by the age of 18 months.

24 Jun 2004

Doctors failing to identify smoking in adolescents

Doctors are failing to identify smoking status in about half of the adolescent patients seen, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison study.

24 Jun 2004

Minimally invasive procedure provides new childbirth hope

Beauty therapist, Jo Anastasio, who suffers from an extremely rare blood vessel abnormality, was told that she couldn’t have children and that her only option was a hysterectomy.

21 Jun 2004

Exposure to excess hormones in the womb increases risk of heart disease and diabetes

Babies exposed to excess hormones in the womb are not only at increased risk of developing heart disease and diabetes in later life but can pass these risks to their children.

17 Jun 2004

Prediction of the age of menopause and hence a woman's reproductive prime

UK researchers have shown a strong direct relationship between ovarian volume and the number of primordial follicles (eggs) remaining in the ovaries of women of reproductive age.

16 Jun 2004

Couples with higher education and earnings more likely to marry

Both economic and interpersonal factors play a role in the likelihood that unwed parents will marry by their child's first birthday, according to an article published in the latest issue of the journal Demography.

16 Jun 2004

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes, or high blood sugar, that only pregnant women get

Gestational diabetes is a type of diabetes, or high blood sugar, that only pregnant women get. If a woman is found to have high blood sugar when she's pregnant, but she never had high blood sugar before, she has gestational diabetes.

15 Jun 2004

Public awareness campaign in Northern Virginia on sexual coercion and statutory rape

The Virginia Department of Health will sponsor a public awareness campaign in Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Roanoke in June and July to help reduce sexual coercion and statutory rape.

15 Jun 2004

African-American women less likely to survive breast cancer than white women

A new study led by investigators at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center may help explain why African-American women with breast cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease and are less likely to survive the disease than white women.

15 Jun 2004

Prenatal factors may play a role in autism

Mothers of children diagnosed with autism are more likely to be older and to have experienced obstetric difficulties during pregnancy, labor and delivery, but these complications are likely related to underlying genetic factors, according to an article in the June issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

14 Jun 2004

Research shows there is no substitute for reliable birth control

US research published (Thursday 10 June) in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction suggests that a single act of unprotected intercourse is more likely to lead to an unwanted pregnancy than was previously believed.

12 Jun 2004

World Blood Donor Day

The world today honours voluntary blood donors for their priceless contribution to their communities. However, while celebrations take place in many cities around the world, numerous patients and trauma victims in those same cities will be dying or suffering unnecessarily because of a shortage of blood.

11 Jun 2004

Virginia Health urges women of childbearing age to take folic acid

According to data from a report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in January 2004, only 35 percent of Virginia women of childbearing age take a vitamin pill that contains folic acid.

11 Jun 2004

The once youngest person in the world to survive a heart by-pass operation is expecting her 2nd child

Lorraine Stone was born with heart disease. When just three days old she was the youngest person in the world at that time to survive a heart by-pass operation. Since then she has had five major heart operations. Miraculously, at the age 29, she is expecting to give birth to her second child in July.

10 Jun 2004