According to studies in recent years, air pollution affects the thyroid. Thyroid hormones are essential for regulating fetal growth and metabolism, and play an important role in neurological development. Thyroxine (T4) is the main thyroid hormone that is circulating and the thyroid-stimulating hormone is TSH. At 48 hours newborn babies undergo a heel prick test in which … [Read more...]
Fertility & Pregnancy News
Healthy Diet Before, During Pregnancy Linked to Lower Complications
A healthy diet around the time of conception through the second trimester may reduce the risk of several common pregnancy complications, suggests a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Expectant women in the study who scored high on any of three measures of healthy eating had lower risks for gestational diabetes, pregnancy-related blood pressure disorders … [Read more...]
COVID-19 Vaccine Does not Damage the Placenta in Pregnancy
A new Northwestern Medicine study of placentas from patients who received the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy found no evidence of injury, adding to the growing literature that COVID-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy. "The placenta is like the black box in an airplane. If something goes wrong with a pregnancy, we usually see changes in the placenta that can help us figure … [Read more...]
COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines are Immunogenic in Pregnant and Lactating Women, Study Finds
Pregnant women with symptomatic COVID-19 have a higher risk of intensive care unit admissions, mechanical ventilation and death compared to non-pregnant reproductive age women. Increases in preterm birth and still birth have also been observed in pregnancies complicated by the viral infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that people who are … [Read more...]
Breakthrough could Lead to Early Detection of Pregnancy Complications
The quest to create safer, more successful pregnancies is one of the top goals of modern science. While pregnancy is better understood today than ever before, with improvements in technology helping to lower the risk of negative outcomes, there is much researchers still don't know about a vital part of the pregnancy process: uterine fluid. Secreted by glands in the uterus … [Read more...]
Poor Iodine Levels in Women Pose Risks to Fetal Intellectual Development in Pregnancy
An increasing number of young women are at increased risk of having children born with impaired neurological conditions, due to poor iodine intake. Dietary changes, including a growing trend towards the avoidance of bread and iodised salt, as well as a reduced intake of animal products containing iodine can contribute to low iodine levels. A small pilot study undertaken … [Read more...]
Recreating the earliest stages of life
In their effort to understand the very earliest stages of life and how they can go wrong, scientists are confronted with ethical issues surrounding the use of human embryos. The use of animal embryos is also subject to restrictions rooted in ethical considerations. To overcome these limitations, scientists have been trying to recreate early embryos using stem cells. One of … [Read more...]
Skeletal Defects may be Ameliorated after Immobility in the Womb
Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered that some skeletal defects associated with a lack of movement in the womb during early development may still be ameliorated after such periods of immobility if movement resumes. The researchers' discovery was made using chicken embryos, which develop similarly to their human equivalents and which can be easily viewed as … [Read more...]
DHA Supplement may Offset Impact of Maternal Stress on Unborn Males
Neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia disproportionately affect males and are directly linked to early life adversity caused by maternal stress and other factors, which might be impacted by nutrition. But the underlying reasons for these male-specific impacts are not well understood. Researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the MU … [Read more...]
Kids’ Metabolic Health can be Improved with Exercise During Pregnancy: here’s why
A mechanism has been identified that explains how physical exercise in pregnancy confers metabolic health benefits in offspring. According to researchers, the key lies with a protein called SOD3, vitamin D and adequate exercise, with the outcomes possibly forming the first steps to designing rational diet and exercise programs to use during pregnancy and particularly when … [Read more...]
Exercise During Pregnancy may Save Kids from Health Problems as Adults
Exercise during pregnancy may let mothers significantly reduce their children's chances of developing diabetes and other metabolic diseases later in life, new research suggests. A study in lab mice has found that maternal exercise during pregnancy prevented the transmission of metabolic diseases from an obese parent -- either mother or father -- to child. If the finding holds … [Read more...]
Pregnant women pass along protective COVID antibodies to their babies
Antibodies that guard against COVID-19 can transfer from mothers to babies while in the womb, according to a new study from Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This discovery, published Jan. 22, adds to growing evidence that suggests that pregnant women who generate protective … [Read more...]
Health risks to babies due to climate change
Extreme rainfall associated with climate change is causing harm to babies in some of the most forgotten places on the planet setting in motion a chain of disadvantage down the generations, according to new research in Nature Sustainability. Researchers from Lancaster University and the FIOCRUZ health research institute in Brazil found babies born to mothers exposed to … [Read more...]
How Zika virus is transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy
A preclinical study by a University of South Florida Health (USF Health) Morsani College of Medicine research team has discovered a new mechanism for how Zika virus can pass from mothers to their children during pregnancy -- a process known as vertical transmission. The researchers showed, for the first time, that specialized cells lining the uterus (maternal decidual cells) … [Read more...]
New clues on why pregnancy may increase risk of organ transplant rejection
A research study at the University of Chicago has found that in pregnancy, while the T cell response to a fetus becomes tolerant to allow for successful pregnancy, the part of the immune system that produces antibodies (known as the humoral response) becomes sensitized, creating memory B cells that can later contribute to the rejection of a transplant of organ. The results … [Read more...]
Children born extremely preterm are likely to be diagnosed with depression
A study using extensive nationwide registry data showed that girls born extremely preterm, earlier than 28 weeks gestational age, were three times more likely to be diagnosed with depression than peers born close to the expected date of delivery. Increased risk of depression also applied to girls and boys with poor fetal growth born full-term and post-term. The effects of poor … [Read more...]
Predicting Preterm birth
Predicting preterm birth can be difficult, especially for women who have not given birth. It has long been known that the best predictor of preterm birth is someone who has had a prior preterm birth; however, this information is helpful only in second and subsequent pregnancies. For women in their first pregnancy, it is a challenge for obstetricians and midwives to advise them … [Read more...]
Why heat stress damages sperm
University of Oregon biologists have used the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans to identify molecular mechanisms that produce DNA damage in sperm and contribute to male infertility following exposure to heat. In humans, the optimal temperature for sperm production is just below body temperature, in a range of about 90-95 degrees F. Human studies have found that exposure … [Read more...]
Endometriosis: No cure, but diagnosis could avert surgery
The 21-year-old University of South Australia (UniSA) journalism student has lived with the condition for five years after first experiencing symptoms at age 16, but it has taken invasive laparoscopic surgery for an official diagnosis. Keyhole surgery is the standard option to reliably diagnose the three types of endometriosis (peritoneal, ovarian and deep infiltrating … [Read more...]
Researchers identify Proteins that Prevent COVID-19 Transmission through the Placenta
Researchers from Boston Medical Center's Maxwell Finland Laboratory for Infectious Diseases have identified properties in placenta tissue that may play an important role in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 from a mother with the virus to her fetus. The study results demonstrate that the COVID-19 virus universally invades the placenta in cases with and without … [Read more...]
Studying the Role of Microbes as Mediators of Stress
Both Proteobacteria and Lactobacillus are common infant gut microbes. "We discovered, for instance, that mother's chronic prenatal psychological distress was linked to increased abundances of Proteobacteria genera in infant microbiota. In addition, chronic psychological symptoms were connected to decreased abundances of Akkermansia genera which is considered to promote … [Read more...]
Prenatal Stress Associated with Infant Gut Microbes
Mother's chronic prenatal psychological distress and elevated hair cortisol concentrations are associated with gut microbiota composition of the infant, according to a new publication from the FinnBrain research project of the University of Turku, Finland. The results help to better understand how prenatal stress can be connected to infant growth and development. The study has … [Read more...]
Mild Thyroid Dysfunction Affects one in five women with a History of Miscarriage or Subfertility
Mild thyroid abnormalities affect up to one in five women with a history of miscarriage or subfertility which is a prolonged time span of trying to become pregnant, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Thyroid disorders are common in women of reproductive age. Although the prevalence of thyroid … [Read more...]
Extra choline may help pregnant women decrease negative effects of COVID-19 on their newborns
Pregnant women who take extra choline supplements may mitigate the negative impact that viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19, can have on their babies, according to a new study from researchers in the Departments of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Choline is a vitamin B nutrient found in various foods … [Read more...]
High-strain exercise linked to very early pregnancy loss
In women with a history of miscarriage, higher levels of physical activity were associated with a greater risk of subclinical, or very early, pregnancy loss, according to new research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Among women with confirmed pregnancy, physical activity and miscarriage risk were unrelated. "Risk related to physical activity is different for … [Read more...]
How maternal intestinal microbiota is involved in fetal development
All mammals, including humans, are colonized by billions of microbes. These mainly live in our intestines but can also be found in the respiratory tract, on the skin and in the urogenital tract. In the gastroenterology research group of the Department for BioMedical Reserarch (DBMR) at the University of Bern and at the University Hospital Bern, Inselspital, Stephanie … [Read more...]
Skin-to-skin ‘kangaroo care’ shows important benefits for premature babies
A world-first study led by Monash University has demonstrated significant benefits to a premature baby's heart and brain function when held by the parent in skin-to-skin contact. Parent-infant skin-to-skin care (SSC) or kangaroo care, started in the late 1970s in Columbia when incubators to keep babies warm were not available. It is now widely recognized as a beneficial … [Read more...]
Traditional vegetable diet lowers the risk of premature babies
It turns out we should follow our parent's advice when we're thinking about becoming parents ourselves, with a study finding eating the traditional 'three-vegies' before pregnancy lowers the risk of a premature birth. University of Queensland PhD candidate Dereje Gete analysed the diets of nearly 3500 women and found high consumption of carrots, cauliflower, … [Read more...]
Marijuana may impair female fertility
Female eggs exposed to THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, have an impaired ability to produce viable embryos, and are significantly less likely to result in a viable pregnancy, according to an animal study accepted for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting. Marijuana, or cannabis, is the most commonly used recreational drug by … [Read more...]
Parental diet affects sperm and health of future offspring
When parents eat low-protein or high-fat diets it can lead to metabolic disorders in their adult offspring. Now, an international team led by researchers at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) have identified a key player and the molecular events underlying this phenomenon in mice. The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease is a school of thought that … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 40
- Next Page »
