Latest National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Stories

Christina Wang, M.D., lead investigator at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) – one of the leading biomedical research institutes in the country – recently completed a study utilizing a new contraceptive gel that has the potential to be developed as a user controlled chemical birth control agent for males. The gel, which contains testosterone and a synthetic progestin called Nestorone, sharply lowers sperm counts in men with few side effects. The study conducted at LA...

Findings from NIH network support shift in prevention guidelines Adding the drug nevirapine to the regimen given to newborns of women diagnosed with HIV shortly before or during labor halves the newborns' risk of contracting the virus, according to findings by a National Institutes of Health research network. The researchers found that the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission around the time of delivery was 2.2 percent among infants who received the standard drug zidovudine combined...

NIH study shows increased survival from treatment for oxygen deficiency at birth A treatment to reduce the body temperatures of infants who experience oxygen deficiency at birth has benefits into early childhood, according to a follow-up study by a National Institutes of Health research network. Children who received the hypothermia treatment as infants were more likely to have survived to ages 6 and 7, when they were evaluated again, than were children who received routine care, the...

"Significant" findings, document how use of "whole-body hypothermia" technique at birth protected oxygen-deprived newborns from death and mental disability during first 6-7 years of life. DETROIT, May 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- After more than 10 years of study, investigators in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network led by a pediatric researcher at Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center (DMC) have proven an...

A study of mothers and their toddlers suggests that mothers of overweight toddlers often had inaccurate perceptions of their child's body size, according to a report published in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. The study is part of the Nutrition and the Health of Children and Adolescents theme issue. Feeding behaviors are influenced by perceptions of a child's body size and misperception of a child's size could lead to...

Changes in delivery practices appear to be main contributing factor Women take longer to give birth today than did women 50 years ago, according to an analysis of nearly 140,000 deliveries conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The researchers could not identify all of the factors that accounted for the increase, but concluded that the change is likely due to changes in delivery room practice. The study authors called for further research to determine whether...

Researchers with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) have discovered that women spend more time in labor today than they did five decades ago, various media outlets reported on Friday. According to Amy Norton of Reuters, the NIH study found that American females spend approximately two to three hours longer, on average, in labor compared to 1960. Most of that extra time is spent in the first stage of labor, or the time during which the cervix opens until it is wide enough to allow...

Infants' faces evoke species-specific patterns of brain activity in adults Distinct patterns of activity—which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants-- appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant face—even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan. Seeing images of infant faces appeared to activate in the adult's brains circuits that reflect preparation for...

NIH research network identifies differences in brain structure as early as 6 months Patterns of brain development in the first two years of life are distinct in children who are later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), according to researchers in a network funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study results show differences in brain structure at 6 months of age, the earliest such structural changes have been recorded in ASDs. "The difference in the trajectory of...

Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The researchers compared 68 age- and sex-matched, case-control pairs from their research in Jamaica, where UTHealth has been studying autism in collaboration with The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica. “This should put to rest discrepancies...