Latest National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Stories

FDA announcement allows continued compounding of drugThe Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) weighed in on today's FDA announcement to continue to allow pharmacies to compound hydroxyprogesterone caproate, also known as 17P. This FDA announcement comes in response to an outcry from SMFM, ACOG and others regarding the costs of the just-released pharmaceutical version of the drug. The new drug, Makena, made by KV Pharmaceuticals, is being sold at $1,500 per dose as opposed to the...

NIH findings offer additional safeguard for children of mothers untreated during pregnancyPregnant women who are unaware that they have HIV miss the chance for drug treatment that can benefit not only their own health, but could also prevent them from transmitting the virus to their infants. When HIV is not diagnosed until women go into labor, their infants are usually treated soon after birth with the anti HIV drug zidovudine (ZDV), to prevent the infants from becoming infected with the...

NIH funded study has implications for understanding disorders of the uterusResearchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a key step in the establishment of a pregnancy. Their discovery shows how the hormone progesterone suppresses the growth of the uterus's lining so that a fertilized egg can implant in the uterus.This key step, the researchers discovered, occurs when a protein called Hand2 suppresses the chemical activity that stimulates growth of the uterine...

Childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled in the past three decades, and prior research has linked maternal employment to children's body mass index (BMI), a measure of their weight-for-height. A new study in the January/February issue of the journal Child Development has found that children's BMI rose the more years their mothers worked over their children's lifetimes.Researchers at American University, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago used longitudinal...

First study to link bullying and substance abuseBoth boys and girls who are victims of bullying, including bullying through e-mail and the internet, are at elevated risk for depression. However, according to a new study, adolescent girls may engage in substance use as a result of bullying-related depression,.As schools reopen following the holidays, the message to parents of adolescent girls is that bullying can have serious consequences:"If your daughter is a victim of bullying, take it...

LIVINGSTON, N.J. and MORRISTOWN, N.J., Dec. 6, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Columbia Laboratories, Inc. (Nasdaq: CBRX) and Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: WPI) today announced positive top-line results from the PREGNANT Study, a large, global Phase III clinical trial evaluating PROCHIEVE® 8% vaginal progesterone gel to reduce the risk of preterm birth in women with a short cervical length as measured by transvaginal ultrasound at mid-pregnancy. The administration of PROCHIEVE 8%...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Global Down Syndrome Foundation, the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will co-host the first "DOWN SYNDROME: National Conference on Patient Registries, Research Databases, and Biobanks" on December 2-3,2010 in Rockville, Maryland. The conference aims to address the lack of a national Down syndrome medical registry and biobank by...

Most survivors of extremely low birth weight grow up to become productive adults, according to a study led by a Michigan State University economist.Extremely low birth weight is defined as less than about 2.2 pounds. About one in 200 babies is born at that size. But because relatively few survived prior to the 1980s, few studies have examined their adult outcomes.The study led by MSU's John Goddeeris found that while these survivors were somewhat less productive as adults, on average, than...

LA JOLLA, Calif., Nov. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Board of Trustees of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies unanimously voted to elect Dr. Benjamin H. Lewis and Ms. Faye H. Russell as new members during its November 19 meeting in La Jolla. The Salk Institute has also invited the highly accomplished, world-renowned cell biologist Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz to join its faculty as a Non-Resident Fellow. "I am pleased to welcome Dr. Lippincott-Schwartz, Ms. Russell, and...

Working mothers are two-and-a-half times as likely as working fathers to interrupt their sleep to take care of others.That is the finding of a University of Michigan study providing the first known nationally representative data documenting substantial gender differences in getting up at night, mainly with babies and small children.And women are not only more likely to get up at night to care for others, their sleep interruptions last longer"”an average of 44 minutes for women, compared to...