News by Subject Social & Behavior

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery have applied high-throughput genomics to identify rare highly-penetrant genetic variants that drive the development of gestational diabetes.

Curtin University research has found quit support for smoking mothers should continue even after their first babies are born, given that many of those women will become pregnant again, and that quitting can substantially reduce the risk of future preterm births.

When it comes to making eggs, female flies and female humans are surprisingly similar. And that could be a boon for women seeking better birth control methods, a UConn researcher reports in the July 5 issue of PNAS.

New Curtin University-led research has called into question existing health advice that mothers wait a minimum of two years after giving birth to become pregnant again, in order to reduce the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm and small-for-gestational age births.

Survival for a baby born with a birth defect - otherwise known as a congenital anomaly - is a "post-code lottery", according to scientists from 74 countries.

Using a novel imaging approach, researchers discovered that the journey of the egg and the embryo through the fallopian tube is more dynamic and complex than previously thought.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and ZabBio (San Diego, CA) have developed an anti-sperm monoclonal antibody, the Human Contraception Antibody (HCA), which they found to be safe and possess potent sperm agglutination (clumping) and immobilization activity in laboratory tests.

In two recent articles published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, Sharon Hunter, PhD, an associate professor in the CU School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, and M. Camille Hoffman, MD, MSc, an associate professor in the CU School of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, have uncovered a potential link between choline deficiency in Black pregnant women in the United States and increased risk of developmental issues that can evolve into mental illness later in children's lives.

Despite only limited evidence that fertility add-ons increase the odds of having a baby, the majority of women (82%) have used one or more of these treatments as part of their IVF. This is the conclusion of a retrospective study of 1,590 Australian patients which also found more than seven in 10 (72%) had incurred additional costs for these unproven additional therapies and techniques which range from Chinese herbal medicine to endometrial scratching.