Womb News and Research

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The womb is the small, hollow, pear-shaped organ in a woman's pelvis. This is the organ in which a baby grows. Also called uterus.

Study explores lasting effects of maternal diet on food choices

A University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson researcher will explore how maternal diet influences offspring food choices later in life thanks to a National Institutes of Health's New Innovator award, a five-year, $1.5 million "high-risk, high-reward" grant given to early-career scientists advancing ambitious hypotheses with intriguing potential.

11 Nov 2025

Study links father's resilience to better prenatal health outcomes

A husband's optimism and confidence may play a crucial, if often unseen, role in helping babies arrive healthy and on time.

7 Nov 2025

Maternal type 1 diabetes confers a protective effect in children through epigenetic programming

Children with a family history of type 1 diabetes (T1D) have an increased risk of developing the disease.

6 Nov 2025

Galectin-3 found to drive crucial cell fusion in early placental development

During the first weeks of pregnancy, the developing placenta in a mother's womb undergoes a dramatic change.

5 Nov 2025

Researchers reveal how maternal stress reshapes fetal growth and brain development

Maternal stress, encompassing physical, emotional, and psychological distress, remains a widespread yet underestimated risk during pregnancy.

24 Oct 2025

Updated guidelines published for pediatric CPR and emergency cardiovascular care

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association (the Association), a relentless force changing the future of health for everyone everywhere, have published updated guidelines for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and emergency cardiovascular care for newborn and pediatric populations.

24 Oct 2025

Study: Common test to assess viability of IVF embryos may be flawed

A test deployed in many fertility clinics to assess the viability of embryos for use in IVF is likely to overestimate the number of embryos with abnormalities, suggests a study published today.

23 Oct 2025

Immediate skin-to-skin contact offers significant health advantages for infants

Immediate skin-to-skin contact between newborns and their mothers offers a better start in life, improving a number of key health metrics, according to a newly updated Cochrane review.

22 Oct 2025

Why the first 1,000 days matter most in preventing childhood obesity

The EndObesity Consortium’s narrative review underscores that most childhood obesity risks emerge in the first 1,000 days, well before birth, highlighting gaps in parental, social, and policy interventions. Effective prevention demands preconception-focused, family-wide, and system-level strategies built on equitable public health frameworks.

20 Oct 2025

Mother's voice promotes development of language pathways in preemies’ brains

Hearing the sound of their mother's voice promotes development of language pathways in a premature baby's brain, according to a new Stanford Medicine-led study.

14 Oct 2025

Lab-grown embryo models mimic natural formation of blood and heart cells

University of Cambridge scientists have used human stem cells to create three-dimensional embryo-like structures that replicate certain aspects of very early human development - including the production of blood stem cells.

13 Oct 2025

Ketogenic diet protects young rats from effects of prenatal stress

Researchers have shown that young rats fed a ketogenic diet – a diet with high fat and low carbohydrates – are protected from the lasting experience of pre-natal stress.

12 Oct 2025

Cesarean births in advanced labor linked to higher risk of womb scarring

Women who have Cesarean births at an advanced stage of labor are about eight times more likely to develop scars in the womb which are known to increase the likelihood of premature births in future pregnancies, UCL researchers have found.

7 Oct 2025

'Good' gut microbe found to support fetal growth and reduce pregnancy risks

Research led by the University of Cambridge has found the first clear evidence that the 'good' gut bacteria Bifidobacterium breve in pregnant mothers regulates the placenta's production of hormones critical for a healthy pregnancy.

6 Oct 2025

Zika virus exposure during pregnancy permanently shapes offspring's frontline immune cells

A Wayne State University study published in the Oct. 3, 2025, issue of Nature Communications revealed that Zika virus exposure during pregnancy causes long-term, sex-specific changes to a baby's immune system, particularly affecting the frontline immune cells that fight infection.

6 Oct 2025

New ultrasound technique used to stimulate multiple locations in the brain simultaneously

For the first time, a new ultrasound technique allows researchers to stimulate multiple locations in the brain simultaneously.

3 Oct 2025

AI tool detects tiny brain lesions to improve epilepsy treatment in children

An advanced AI tool can detect tiny brain lesions that cause severe epilepsy in children, allowing faster diagnosis, more precise treatment and a potential cure, according to a new study.

30 Sep 2025

Researchers uncover how chromosome crossovers protect fertility

When a woman becomes pregnant, the outcome of that pregnancy depends on many things - including a crucial event that happened while she was still growing inside her own mother's womb.

24 Sep 2025

Common bladder infection may signal urogenital cancer risk

A bout of the common bladder infection, cystitis, may signal the presence of urogenital cancers-which affect parts of the body involved in reproduction and excretion-in middle aged adults, suggests research published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.

17 Sep 2025

Prenatal exposure to opioid analgesics not linked to increased risk of autism or ADHD

Previous studies have suggested that children exposed to opioid pain medications while in the womb have higher rates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but a new study finds that any increased risk could be explained by other factors.

16 Sep 2025