Pregnancy News and Research

Latest Pregnancy News and Research

Limited PBS coverage widens pregnancy nausea treatment disparities in Australia

Pregnant women in Australia are facing an unfair two-tiered system for managing morning sickness, with financial status impacting who can access the full range of modern anti-nausea medications available, rather than simply clinical need.

5 Aug 2026

Korean study finds no overall childhood cancer link with maternal diabetes

Researchers followed 549,851 Korean children and found no statistically significant association between maternal diabetes and overall childhood cancer. The analysis linked maternal diabetes to an 81% higher relative risk of urinary tract cancer, but the absolute difference was only 37 additional cases per 100,000 offspring.

4 Aug 2026

Gestational diabetes cases surge across England, raising health concerns

One in eight mothers in England is now diagnosed with gestational diabetes, with diagnoses rising by 60 per cent in just five years, according to a major study.

3 Aug 2026

First consensus guidelines outline GLP-1 medication use during pregnancy

As the use of GLP-1 and other incretin-based medications for obesity continues to grow worldwide, researchers at Marshall University have contributed to an international effort to address one of medicine's most pressing unanswered questions: How should these medications be used by women before, during and after pregnancy?

3 Aug 2026

Sensitive parenting buffers against child ADHD risks from pregnancy

Research from Oregon Health & Science University's Center for Mental Health Innovation provides new evidence that the way caregivers interact with children when they're very young can protect against the negative effects of inflammation during pregnancy, including increased attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, symptoms in children.

3 Aug 2026

Prediction model can estimate heart disease risk in women earlier in life

McGill University researchers have developed a new tool to identify heart disease risk in women earlier in life.

3 Aug 2026

Cortisone eye drops may reduce blindness in extremely premature babies

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital have conducted the first randomized clinical trial in the world to test cortisone eye drops to slow the progression of serious eye disease in extremely premature babies.

3 Aug 2026

Study links higher body fat to lower sperm counts despite normal BMI

Among 1,058 Danish men, higher body fat percentage was associated with lower total sperm count and altered reproductive hormone levels, but not testicular volume. Body fat percentage showed stronger links with several semen measures than BMI or waist-to-height ratio, with the sperm-count association strengthening among men with normal BMI.

2 Aug 2026

Secondhand smoke alters tooth enamel development in early life

Exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke during the first days of life can cause changes in tooth enamel mineralization without causing visible changes to the teeth.

31 Jul 2026

Midpregnancy herbicide exposure linked to increased preterm birth risk

Exposure to a widely used herbicide during the middle months of pregnancy may increase the chance of giving birth too early, before 37 weeks, a new study shows.

31 Jul 2026

Tea, tap water and child IQ: What a Canadian pregnancy study found

Researchers analyzed 485 mother-child pairs in Canada to examine whether estimated fluoride intake from tea during pregnancy was associated with IQ at ages 3 to 4. Each 0.5 mg/day increase was associated with a 2.24-point lower full-scale IQ score, although the observational design and estimated exposure prevent causal conclusions.

31 Jul 2026

England sees rising hospital admissions for ectopic pregnancy since 2021

University of Liverpool researchers have identified that hospital admissions in England for ectopic pregnancy (when a fertilized egg implants outside the womb) have been increasing since 2021, with more than twice as many admissions of women from most deprived areas than the least deprived areas.

29 Jul 2026

Early-life sugar restriction may reduce dementia risk later

Consuming less sugar in utero before birth and during the first one to two years of life was associated with a lower risk of developing dementia later in life, according to a study published July 29, 2026, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

29 Jul 2026

NIH awards $2.4 million to study how maternal viral infections reprogram fetal immune development

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health has awarded a new, five-year $2.4 million R01 grant to Dr. Jiahui Ding, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine's C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development, to support research that aims to uncover how viral infections during pregnancy reprogram the developing immune system of the fetus, influencing susceptibility to infectious diseases throughout life.

29 Jul 2026

Father's diet before conception impacts baby's body composition

A father's diet can affect his children's health and body composition before they are even conceived. A study of 43 triads of fathers, mothers, and newborns treated in the public healthcare system of Ribeirão Preto in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, demonstrated this.

28 Jul 2026

Integration is key to fighting global epidemics, WHO reports

The World Health Organization (WHO) today launched a new report assessing progress in implementing the Global Health Sector Strategies (GHSS) on HIV, viral hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) for 2022–2030.

28 Jul 2026

Europe risks missing target to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030

While Europe has made steady progress in preventing hepatitis B and C, with the prevalence of hepatitis B now at near-zero levels among children below five years old, an uneven implementation of key measures means that the region is set to miss the 2030 target to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat, according to new data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on World Hepatitis Day.

28 Jul 2026