Infant

Infants With Rare Genetic Disease Saved by Cord Blood Stem Cells

Children with a fatal genetic disorder called Krabbe disease can be saved and their brain development preserved if they receive stem cells from umbilical cord blood before symptoms of the disease develop, according to a study published in the May 19, 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Without an immediate transplant of stem cells, Krabbe infants rapidly begin to lose all c...

Infants with Rare Genetic Disease Saved By Cord Blood Stem Cells

Children with a fatal genetic disorder called Krabbe Disease can be saved and their brain development preserved if they receive stem cells from umbilical cord blood before symptoms of the disease develop, according to a study published in the May 19, 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Without an immediate transplant of stem cells, Krabbe infants rapidly begin to lose all c...

Antiretroviral Therapy May Prevent HIV Transmission From Breastfeeding Mothers To Infants

Two new studies support the hypothesis that combination antiretroviral drug therapy may reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission through breastfeeding, findings that could have significant implications in the developing world. Researchers in the first study found mothers pass antiretroviral medications on to their breastfeeding infants in concentrations high enough to prevent in...

Infant transplant patients resist infections that kill adult AIDS patients

Investigators have discovered that some type of protective system goes into action in some cases when a baby's immune system is deficient. This discovery indicates a hidden safety net that might have far-reaching consequences for treating diseases of the immune system such as AIDS. The Mayo Clinic-led study was conducted with colleagues in Toronto and Baltimore, and is reported in the early onlin...

Infants can organise visual information at just four months

Research investigating attention in infancy has revealed that, at just four months old, babies are able to organise visual information in at least three different ways, according to brightness, shape, and how close the visual elements are together (proximity). These new findings mean that very young infants are much more capable of organising their visual world than psychologists had previously t...

New Rotavirus vaccine joins routine infant immunization schedule

The federal agency that oversees childhood vaccinations today recommended a new vaccine for routine use against rotavirus infection, a common childhood illness that is the single largest infectious disease killer of infants and young children worldwide. Three scientists associated with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and The Wistar Institute are co-inventors of the vaccine, based on resea...

New study shows benefit of early therapy in HIV-infected infants

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) for infants born with HIV infection may be most effective when given in their first five months of life, according to a study published in the April 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. Uncertainty over when to start antiretroviral treatment in children infected with HIV from their mothers revolves around balancing the benefits o...

Researchers link two more genes to sudden infant death syndrome

Recent discoveries at Mayo Clinic added two more cardiac genes to the list of potential links to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), increasing the possibility that genetic defects of the heart may cause up to 15 percent of SIDS cases. This research will be presented Friday at Heart Rhythm 2006, the 27th Annual Scientific Sessions of the Heart Rhythm Society in Boston. In the two recent s...

US infant mortality rate fails to improve

Nearly 28,000 babies died before their first birthday, according to new infant mortality statistics for 2003 released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). In 2003, the infant mortality rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births, which wa...

Artificial cornea offers better results for infants, some blind patients

Infants and adults who are blind due to a cloudy or damaged cornea are seeing some remarkable results thanks to a new version of an artificial implant that takes the place of the cornea, the clear covering of the eye that serves as our window on the world. The results of operations involving the first infants and children in the world to receive the device, performed by physicians at the U...

Mutant gene causes severe kidney disease in infants

Scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have discovered a previously unknown cause for a severe, early-onset form of kidney disease and renal failure in children: recessive mutations in a gene called phospholipase C epsilon or PLCE1. Identifying the mutant gene is important to scientists because PLCE1 affects the development of podocytes ?specialized cells that play a vital...

New study: Preterm birth causes one-third of all infant deaths

Premature birth was the underlying cause of nearly twice as many infant deaths than previously estimated, according to a new analysis by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The analysis, published today in Pediatrics, found that in 2002 preterm birth, birth at less than 37 completed weeks gestation, contributed to more than one-third of infant deaths within...

A potential biological cause for sudden infant death syndrome

New autopsy data provide the strongest evidence yet that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is not a "mystery" disease but has a concrete biological basis. In the November 1 issue of JAMA, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston document abnormalities in the brainstem ?a part of the brain that regulates breathing, blood pressure, body heat, and arousal ?in babies who died from SIDS. S...

Female-led infanticide in wild chimpanzees

Researchers observing wild chimpanzees in Uganda have discovered repeated instances of a mysterious and poorly understood behavior: female-led infanticide. The findings, reported by Simon Townsend, Katie Slocombe and colleagues of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and the Budongo Forest Project, Uganda, appear in the May 15th issue of the journal Current Biology, published by Cell Press.</...

Early exposure to indoor fungus molecules may protect infants against future allergies

Maybe being a fussy housekeeper isn’t such a good thing after all. The UC team found that infan...

Resistant HIV quickly hides in infants' cells

New evidence shows that drug-resistant virus passed from mother-to-child can quickly establish itself in infants?CD4+ T cells where it can hide for years, likely limiting their options for future treatment. The study is published in the May 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV is an important factor in the AIDS pandemic,...

HIV and malaria combine to adversely affect pregnant women and their infants

Malaria is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes that kills more than one million people every yea...