The part of the brain responsible for making most decisions about how to behave seems to develop less quickly in children exposed to cocaine before they were born, University of Florida researchers have found.
Exposure to industrial chemicals in the womb or early in life can impair brain development but only a handful are controlled to protect children, researchers said on Wednesday.
Scientists supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, report in this week?s New England Journal of Medicine that pregnant women who received non-surgical treatment for their periodontal, or gum, disease did not also significantly lower their risk of delivering a premature or low-birthweight baby.
U.K. fertility experts issued recommendations on Wednesday to reduce the rising number of twin births in cases of in-vitro fertilization, including the transfer of only one embryo into the womb. In a report presented to the nation’s fertility watchdog, the panel of experts said research has shown that limiting the number of embryos transferred can reduce the number of twins born through in-vitro fertilization without changing the overall success rate.
A woman in her 50s gave birth last year to a baby she had carried for her daughter, who is unable to bear children, the head of a maternity clinic in Nagano Prefecture announced Sunday. The revelation could stir further debate about births by surrogate mothers, which are opposed by both the health ministry and the nation’s obstetrician association.
Pregnant women who witnessed the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11 passed on biological signs of stress to their babies, researchers suggest. Scientists from Edinburgh and New York say tests on infants when they were a year old showed they had low levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Reproduction is one of the basic characteristics of a living organism. By this mode it not only maintains its own harmony but also helps in propagation of its own kind. In mammals, pregnancy is the hallmark of reproduction and in humans in particular a female takes 9 months to let the fetus grow in her womb so that it becomes viable and can live or can endure the circumstances outside the womb, of course still under parents love and care.
A new study suggests that eating more vegetables, fruit and protein before pregnancy may lower the risk of having a child who develops leukemia, the most common childhood cancer in the United States.
The most beautiful part of womanhood, it is said, is the ability to bring forth a new life. But this can prove to be a curse if the new life is unwanted. Unprecedented advances in modern science have, however, empowered a woman to decide whether she wants to give birth or not. Though the word abortion has come out of wraps over the years, it is still being used unscrupulously by many a doctor and patient.
CT scans, used increasingly in hospital on children with head injuries, may damage their intellectual development, according to new research on the effects of low doses of ionising radiation on the brain.