Birth Defects News and Research

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Withholding treatment appears to be primary mode of infant deaths in NICU

Withdrawal of life-sustaining support and withholding lifesaving measures (such as CPR) appear to be the primary modes of infant deaths in a neonatal intensive care unit, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

5 Jul 2011

Birth defects more prevalent in mountaintop coal mining areas

Birth defects are significantly more common in areas of mountaintop coal mining and are on the rise as the practice becomes more common, according to a study by researchers at Washington State University and West Virginia University.

24 Jun 2011

First Australian clinic to exclusively diagnose and treat fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Australia will soon have its first screening and diagnostic service for children with alcohol-related birth defects. The service is being set up by The Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney amid concerns that thousands of Australian children are suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). The disorders are triggered in unborn babies exposed to alcohol consumed by their mothers and are the most common, preventable cause of disabilities and brain damage in children.

21 Jun 2011

PCR-based saliva test can accurately identify cytomegalovirus infection in newborns

Although cytomegalovirus infection is a known cause of birth defects, including permanent hearing loss, most CMV infections in infants are not identified early, when interventions can lessen the effects of hearing loss.

2 Jun 2011

Folic acid during pregnancy reduces rate of colon cancer in offspring

Folic acid supplements given to pregnant and breast-feeding rats reduced the rate of colon cancer in their offspring by 64 per cent, a new study has found.

27 May 2011

New autism research findings presented at 10th annual IMFAR

Much about autism is unknown, but researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) are working to learn more about the neurodevelopmental disorder and its most effective treatments. A team of researchers from URMC joins researchers from across the world in San Diego this week for the 10th annual International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR).

16 May 2011

Scientists uncover gene responsible for Adams-Oliver Syndrome

Scientists at King's College London have, for the first time, uncovered a gene responsible for Adams-Oliver Syndrome, a condition which can cause birth defects of the heart, limbs, or blood vessels.

13 May 2011

Simple ultrasound examination may avoid complex tests for children with urinary tract infection

For infants and young children with urinary tract infection seen in the ER, a simple ultrasound examination may avoid the need for more complex x-ray tests, reports a study in the May issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

10 May 2011

Study finds association between ERBB4 gene, LVOT malformations

A gene known to be important in cardiac development has been newly associated with congenital heart malformations that result in obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. These are the findings from a study conducted by Nationwide Children's Hospital and appearing in the journal Birth Defects Research Part A.

30 Apr 2011

Researchers begin approved drugs screening for clinical use against rare diseases

Researchers have begun screening the first definitive collection of thousands of approved drugs for clinical use against rare and neglected diseases. They are hunting for additional uses of the drugs hoping to find off-label therapies, for some of the 6,000 rare diseases that afflict 25 million Americans.

28 Apr 2011

Study: Women use more medications during pregnancy

Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Harvard School of Public Health, have reported widespread and increasing medication use among pregnant women.

26 Apr 2011

Early surgery, timely treatment and prenatal diagnosis can help prevent oral clefts

Affecting more than 7,000 U.S. babies each year, cleft lip and/or cleft palate are the second most common birth defect, the cause of which continues to mystify scientists despite growing evidence of a complex interplay of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors.

22 Apr 2011

CTIS Pregnancy Health Information Line aims to educate women about meningitis

The California Teratogen Information Service Pregnancy Health Information Line, a state-wide non-profit organization based at the University of California, San Diego with affiliates across North America, will join in the effort to raise awareness of meningitis prevention by helping to launch a new study that will assess safety of the meningitis vaccine in pregnancy.

22 Apr 2011

March of Dimes honors Whitehead Institute Director for Developmental Biology work

Whitehead Institute Director David Page has been named a recipient of the 2011 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. The prize honors Page's groundbreaking body of research on the human Y chromosome.

22 Apr 2011

Breakdown products of thalidomide cause birth defects: New study

Thalidomide may have been withdrawn in the early 1960s for use by pregnant women, but its dramatic effects remain memorable half a century later. Now, researchers have taken a major step toward understanding exactly how thalidomide causes the birth defects.

20 Apr 2011

Scientists identify networks of genes critical in embryonic-heart development

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have identified networks of genes that play an important role in embryonic-heart development, advancing knowledge of how healthy hearts develop-and offering clues about how to combat a common birth defect known as congenital heart disease.

18 Apr 2011

Non-Hispanic black infants born with heart defects more likely to die within five years

Non-Hispanic black infants born with heart defects are more likely to die within the first five years of life than their non-Hispanic white and Hispanic peers. For certain types of congenital heart abnormalities, Hispanic children as well as non-Hispanic black children fare worse than non-Hispanic white children.

18 Apr 2011

Obesity and smoking linked to stillbirths: Report

According to experts, excessive weight, smoking and late maternal age over 35 are contributing to thousands of stillbirths each year in high-income countries, including Australia, and the trend looks set to continue. These figures were published in the Lancet medical journal.

13 Apr 2011

Alcohol misuse in pregnancy linked to high risk of premature birth

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, premature birth, and low birth weight. But there are conflicting reports about how much alcohol, if any, it is safe for a pregnant woman to drink. New research published in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth looked at the amounts of alcohol women drank during their early pregnancy and showed the effect this had on their babies.

11 Apr 2011

Investigational drug effective for patients with obesity

An investigational combination of drugs already approved to treat obesity, migraine and epilepsy produced up to a 10 percent weight loss in obese individuals participating in a one-year clinical trial, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

11 Apr 2011