The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing the first ever report highlighting children’s special susceptibility to harmful chemical exposures at different periods of their growth.
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have developed a fast and accurate way to measure a major hormone released by the thyroid gland — an advance they say may help in the treatment of many women who have overactive or underactive thyroid glands.
A quarter of adult New Yorkers have elevated blood mercury levels, according to survey results released today by the Health Department, and the elevations are closely tied to fish consumption.
Exposing a developing female sheep fetus to low doses of chemicals commonly present in the environment can disturb the development of the ovary, a scientist told the 23rd Annual Conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday, July 4). Dr. Paul Fowler, of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, said that this research would help to establish the importance of the effect of environmental chemicals for fertility.
1050 pregnant women are being recruited for the most extensive trial of its kind to establish the effect of using nicotine patches during pregnancy. The ?1.3m clinical trial ? Smoking, Nicotine and Pregnancy (SNAP) trial ? will investigate whether nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is safe, effective and cost-effective for mums-to-be who want to give up smoking. It will also study the effect on the behaviour and development of the child.
The drug most commonly used to arrest preterm labor, magnesium sulfate, is more likely than another common treatment to cause mild to serious side effects in pregnant women, according to a study from researchers at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine.
Gestational diabetes may place a much higher percentage of pregnant women – and their unborn babies – at risk for adverse outcomes than previously believed, according to a major international study presented at the American Diabetes Association’s 67th Annual Scientific Sessions.
An international study led by a McMaster researcher aims to determine if a manual procedure to turn breech babies in the uterus can result in fewer births by caesarean section.
Embryonic stem cells are unique because they can develop into virtually any kind of tissue type, an attribute called pluripotency. Somatic cell nuclear transfer (?therapeutic cloning?) offers the hope of one day creating customized embryonic stem cells with a patient?s own DNA. Here, an individual?s DNA would be placed into an egg, resulting in a blastocyst that houses a supply of stem cells. But to access these cells, researchers must destroy a viable embryo.
Four new reviews shed light on CHD by describing the diversity of the condition, exploring potential ways of treating it, using animal models to discover which genes play a role in diaphragm development, and examining its connection to cardiovascular malformations.