Fertility & Pregnancy News

Individual small RNAs are responsible for controlling the expression of gonadoliberin or GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), a neurohormone that controls sexual maturation, the appearance of puberty, and fertility in adults. This has just been demonstrated by the "Development and Plasticity of the Neuroendocrine Brain" team led by Vincent Prévot, Inserm Research Director … [Read more...]

The world's biggest study offering healthy eating and exercise advice to pregnant women who are overweight or obese has shown a significant reduction in the number of babies born over 4kg (8.8 pounds) in weight. The LIMIT Study, led by researchers from the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute and the Women's and Children's Hospital, involved more than 2200 pregnant … [Read more...]

A pilot study found that use of a mobile phone app that provided supportive texts and an online community significantly increased the rate of breastfeeding among new mothers. An abstract of the study, "Mother's Milk Messaging (MMM): A Pilot Study of an App to Support Breastfeeding in First Time Mothers," will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2016 Meeting … [Read more...]

Feeding premature babies mostly breast milk during the first month of life appears to spur more robust brain growth, compared with babies given little or no breast milk. Studying preterm infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children's Hospital, the researchers found that preemies whose daily diets were at least 50 percent breast milk had more brain … [Read more...]

Probiotic supplements protected female mice from the loss of bone density that occurs after having their ovaries removed, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and Georgia State University have shown. The results were published Monday, April 25 in Journal of Clinical Investigation. In mice, ovary removal induces the hormonal changes that occur with menopause … [Read more...]

The Annals of Family Medicine today published an article detailing research showing that women with a history of pregnancy loss are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease later in adulthood than other women, work completed by physicians in the Center for Primary Care and Prevention (CPCP) at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island. The article "Risk of Cardiovascular Disease … [Read more...]

A new Kaiser Permanente study, published in Pediatric Obesity, found that pre-pregnancy obesity and excessive weight gain during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of the child becoming overweight at age 2. The study also found breastfeeding for at least six months helped reduce the likelihood of a child being overweight at age 2. In the past 30 years, obesity … [Read more...]

Although rice and rice products are typical first foods for infants, a new study found that infants who ate rice and rice products had higher urinary arsenic concentrations than those who did not consume any type of rice, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. Arsenic exposure from rice is a concern for infants and children. Infant rice cereal may … [Read more...]

Women have wider hips than men because their pelves must allow for the birth of large-brained babies. Nevertheless, many female pelves are still not wide enough, which can result in difficult births. Traditionally, the human pelvis has been considered an evolutionary compromise between birthing and walking upright; a wider pelvis would compromise efficient bipedal locomotion. … [Read more...]

One of the secrets to rich milk production in lactation has been uncovered by researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Their studies have revealed that breast cells develop two nuclei as the breast switches on lactation to nurture the newborn. This change begins to occur in late pregnancy with the generation of vast numbers of cells with two nuclei. The … [Read more...]

Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), is the leading cause of death in infants 1 month to 1 year of age in the United States. Although the reason is unknown, maternal age less than 20 years is associated with an increased risk of SIDS. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found … [Read more...]

Now women have yet one more incentive to lose weight as a new study has shown evidence that behavioral weight loss can help manage menopausal hot flashes. The pilot study, which was published online last month in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), consisted of 40 overweight or obese white and African-American women with hot flashes, which … [Read more...]

Nursing infants' gastrointestinal tracts are enriched with specific protective microbes. Mother's milk, itself, guides the development of neonates' gut microbiota, nourishing a very specific bacterial population that, in turn, provides nourishment and protects the child. Now a team from the University of California, Davis, has identified the compound in the milk that supplies … [Read more...]

Women who stayed on a low fat diet for approximately eight years reduced their risk of death from invasive breast cancers and improved their survival rates when compared with women who had not followed the dietary regimen, according to a study presented at a clinical trial plenary session, entitled "Transformative Clinical Trials in Breast Cancer," at the American Association … [Read more...]

Women with epilepsy are just as likely to achieve a successful pregnancy as women without the neurological disorder, according to a new study led by research teams at multiple centers, including NYU Langone Medical Center. In a prospective study, women with epilepsy had a comparable likelihood of achieving pregnancy, time taken to get pregnant, and pregnancy outcomes such as … [Read more...]

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Development Economics, researchers Professor Marco Manacorda (Queen Mary University of London) and Dr Martin Foureaux Koppensteiner (University of Leicester) focused on evidence from the exposure of day-to-day violence in Brazil by analysing the birth outcomes of children whose mothers were exposed to local violence, as measured by … [Read more...]

Data presented today demonstrates that healthy maternal Body Mass Index (BMI) and exclusively breastfeeding a child for at least six months can reduce the risk of infants developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in adolescence. The results were presented at The International Liver CongressTM 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. Pre-pregnancy BMI within the normal range was … [Read more...]

Babies born to pregnant women taking the epilepsy drug lamotrigine may not be at an increased risk of birth defects, such as cleft lip, cleft palate or clubfoot, according to a study published in the April 6, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Lamotrigine is an epilepsy drug used on its own or in combination with other … [Read more...]

Children born to mothers who eat salmon when pregnant may be less likely to have doctor diagnosed asthma compared to children whose mothers do not eat it, new research has shown. The study, led by Professor Philip Calder of the University of Southampton, was presented at the recent Experimental Biology Congress in San Diego. Professor Calder presented the findings after … [Read more...]

The babies of obese women who develop gestational diabetes are five times as likely to be excessively large by six months of pregnancy, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge. The study, which shows that excessive fetal growth begins weeks before at-risk women are screened for gestational diabetes, suggests that current screening programmes may take place … [Read more...]

Post-menopausal women who use metformin long-term for the treatment of diabetes may be at lower risk for developing certain cancers and dying from these diseases, reports a large prospective study from researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) and the University at Buffalo (UB). Their analysis was based on data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a series of … [Read more...]

New research involving mice, published in the April 2016 issue of The FASEB Journal, suggests that maternal obesity and poor nutrition during pregnancy affects the egg reserves of female offspring. This discovery improves scientific understanding of the long-term, generational, effects of obesity and poor nutrition. This understanding is the first step toward devising … [Read more...]

To better understand the causes of male infertility, a team of Bay Area researchers is exploring the factors, both physiological and biochemical, that differentiate fertile sperm from infertile sperm. At the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting, which takes place Feb. 15-19, 2014, in San Francisco, Calif., the team will present its work to identify and characterize proteins … [Read more...]

A team of researchers at City of Hope has developed a screening assay that can quickly assess up to 1,536 compounds' effect on estrogen activity in the body. The test can also evaluate whether chemicals act as inhibitors of aromatase, an enzyme linked to breast cancer that converts androgen to estrogen. The results verifying this novel screening method -- called AroER … [Read more...]

A reduced risk of cervical lesions among Danish girls and women at the population level is associated with use of a quadrivalent HPV vaccine after only six years, according to a new study published February 19 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Two HPV vaccines are currently available and have proven to be highly effective against HPV16/18-associated cervical … [Read more...]

Patients with HPV-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx (SCCOP) had a longer time to development of distant metastasis (DM) after initial treatment, and had more metastatic sites in more atypical locations compared to HPV-negative patients, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. Culled from records of … [Read more...]

Nutrition is crucial before, during and after pregnancy to optimize health for both mother and child, according to an updated position paper and a new practice paper from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The Academy's position paper "Nutrition and Lifestyle for a Healthy Pregnancy Outcome" has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. An … [Read more...]

Women who are obese before they become pregnant face an increased risk of delivering a very premature baby, according to a new study of nearly 1 million California births. The findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine provide important clues as to what triggers extremely preterm births, specifically those that occur prior to 28 weeks of pregnancy. The … [Read more...]

A Michigan State University study has found that too much of a hormone commonly used during in vitro fertility, or IVF, treatments actually decreases a woman's chances of having a baby. The research, recently published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, is the largest study to analyze more than 650,000 IVF cycles in women nationwide. James Ireland, an MSU professor … [Read more...]

Before women even become pregnant, their biological profile may predict a lower-birthweight baby, a UCLA-led research team reports. Most people have a high level of cortisol -- a hormone the body releases in response to stressful events (and also at other times) -- when they get out of bed in the morning, and that level declines throughout the day. In some people, however, … [Read more...]