Prenatal in Biological News

Microarray analysis improves prenatal diagnosis

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 17, 2008) -- A "chip" or array that can quickly detect disorders such as Down syndrome or other diseases associated with chromosomal abnormalities proved an effective tool in prenatal diagnosis in a series of 300 cases at Baylor College of Medicine, said researchers in a report th...

Low sperm count may be associated with prenatal testosterone excess

Exposure to an excess of sexual steroids, like testosterone, during fetal development may be a potential risk factor for low sperm count and motility, according to a new study accepted for publication in Endocrinology, a journal of The Endocrine Society. "The majority of disorders affecting s...

Moderate prenatal exposure to alcohol and stress in monkeys can cause touch sensitivity

A new study on monkeys has found that moderate exposure to alcohol and stress during pregnancy can lead to sensitivity to touch in the monkeys babies. In human children, sensitivity to touch is one of a number of characteristics of the approximately 5 percent of children who over-respond to senso...

Trainor Lab characterizes gene essential for prenatal development of nervous system

The Stowers Institutes Trainor Lab has demonstrated the role of a gene important to the embryonic development of the nervous system, a process that requires coordination of differentiation of immature neural cells with the cycle of cell division that increases their numbers. Until now, the mechani...

MIT: Prenatal arsenic exposure detected in newborns

CAMBRIDGE, Mass MIT researchers have found that the children of mothers whose water supplies were contaminated with arsenic during their pregnancies harbored gene expression changes that may lead to cancer and other diseases later in life. In addition to establishing the potential harmful effects...

PET/MRI scans may help unravel mechanisms of prenatal drug damage

Scientists have demonstrated a new way to assess the potentially damaging effects of prenatal drug exposure--a technique that could also be used to monitor a fetus's response to therapeutic drugs--using sophisticated, noninvasive medical imaging tools. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's ...

Poor prenatal nutrition permanently damages function of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas

Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have discovered one reason why infants with low birth weight have a high potential of developing type 2 diabetes later in life. In studies of mice, the researchers found that poor prenatal nutrition impairs the pancreas's ability to later secrete enough insulin ...

Study suggests obese women should not gain weight

..., the researchers followed 232 obese pregnant women, all of whom had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater. Half of the women followed conventional prenatal nutritional guidelines, which is essentially "eat to appetite" (control group). The other half were placed on a well-balanced, nutritionally monitored...

Report updates guidelines on how much weight women should gain during pregnancy

...should record their patients' weight, height, and BMI as a routine practice prior to conception, throughout pregnancy, and in the post-partum period. prenatal care providers and expectant mothers should work together to set pregnancy weight gain goals based on the guidelines and other factors relevant to eac...

Society for Prevention Research Meeting in Washington, D.C., May 27-29, 2009

...-family partnership program under President Obama's budget proposals. Prevention science has demonstrated that programs like this can lead to improved prenatal health, fewer childhood injuries and fewer subsequent pregnancies. More than three decades of research, especially research conducted by Dr. David Old...

Low levels of vitamin D linked to common vaginal infection in pregnant women

...they should talk with their doctor if they have concerns about their vitamin D status. All women should be encouraged to eat a healthy diet and take a prenatal vitamin before they become pregnant or as soon as they find out they are pregnant." ...

Prenatal meth exposure linked to abnormal brain development

..., leading to an increasing number of children with prenatal meth exposure," said study author Linda Chang, MD,...7;noa in Honolulu. "But until now, the effects of prenatal meth exposure on the developing brain of a child w...elopment. The scans showed that children with prenatal meth exposure had differences in the white matter ...

Latest research on children's issues featured at SRCD meeting

... Can viewers in diapers learn languages from a video? How is the recession going to affect children? Is smoking during pregnancy a prenatal insult? What is the latest research on the achievement gap between different ethnic groups? How is the electronic age affecting children's social valu...

AIUM Presents 2009 Joseph H. Holmes Pioneer Awards

...wardee Lawrence Platt, MD, has authored more than 300 publications, including 3 books and 285 peer-reviewed articles. His research includes studies in prenatal diagnosis, ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology, and the biophysical assessment of the fetal condition. His work has been funded by numerous agenci...

AIUM presents 2009 Distinguished Sonographer award

...e is also currently practicing as the obstetric and gynecologic sonographer at Edmond Renaissance Physicians in Edmond, Oklahoma, as well as a weekend prenatal sonographer at the Department of Radiology of Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Her work as an educator, including curriculum and p...

Researchers discover link between schizophrenia and diabetes

...o have other medical problems that can't be attributed to other factors," Dr. Kirkpatrick says. "Bad things that happen in utero and at birth, such as prenatal famine and low birth weight, have both been shown to increase the risk of diabetes and schizophrenia. Problems in early development can leave a lastin...

Exposure to insecticide may play role in obesity epidemic among some women

... EAST LANSING, Mich. prenatal exposure to an insecticide commonly used up until the 1970s may play a role...orm how we think about the causes of obesity and potentially help us create prenatal tests to show which offspring are at higher risks," she said. The mother...

Scientists discover why teeth form in a single row

...eir goal is to manipulate stem cells to treat malformations and to develop prevention strategies for cleft palate (e.g. the inclusion of folic acid in prenatal vitamins prevents neural tube defects in some cases). Cleft lip/palate occurs one in 700 live births. Along with Jiang, the work was led by Zunyi ...

Consumers desire more genetic testing, but not designer babies

...of age. Consumers, however, are less interested in prenatal genetic testing for traits including tall stature,...that a majority of respondents would elect to have prenatal genetic testing for life altering conditions but m...eself might dissuade an individual from undergoing prenatal genetic testing. The survey revealed that about 80...

Far-reaching genetics topics to be addressed: 2009 Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting, March 25-29

...t issues in clinical cancer genetics The metabolic basis of cardiac disease Progress toward development of stem cell-based therapeutics Noninvasive prenatal diagnostics Carrier testing for common genetic diseases Current and novel molecular genetic methodologies And many more For complete daily prog...

American Chemical Society's weekly PressPac -- Jan. 14, 2009

...portunity to reduce the health toll from a range of diseases by focusing more attention on identification of environmental factors that can damage the prenatal immune system as well as that of infants and children, according to an article scheduled for the Jan. 19 issue of ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicolog...

New technology aims to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths

... London, ON A new technology that could help physicians screen pregnant women at risk of developing a prenatal and potentially fatal complication called preeclampsia has been developed at The University of Western Ontario and the Children's Health Research Inst...

Jupiter's shrinking red spot

...t/90049 7) MODELING EMBRYONIC HEART DEVELOPMENT Congenital heart diseases affect one percent of newborn babies and babies who are lost in the prenatal period, and the malformation of the circulatory system is responsible for 10 percent of stillbirths. To give scientists new insight into the devel...

Animal and biological science highlights: San Antonio Fluid Dynamics Conference, Nov. 23-25

.../89974 . 6) MODELING EMBRYONIC HEART DEVELOPMENT Congenital heart diseases affect one percent of newborn babies and babies who are lost in the prenatal period, and the malformation of the circulatory system is responsible for 10 percent of stillbirths. To give scientists new insight into the devel...

Depression during pregnancy can double risk of preterm delivery

...e attention to depression during pregnancy to catch it early," Li said. "If prenatal depression is indeed as prevalent as reported in this and other studies and... the risk of preterm delivery, then bringing depression to the forefront of prenatal care could lead to a significant reduction of preterm deliveries." In a...

Innovations in Pediatric Medicine CME conference brings together national pediatrics experts

...aldo, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn. 8:45 9:15 a.m. prenatal Pediatrics: How Analysis of Fetal Nucleic Acids in Maternal Blood Provides ...s Dr. Evan Snyder, University of California, San Diego 1:15 1:45 p.m. prenatal Stem Cell Transplantation -- The Virtues of Tolerance Dr. Alan W. Flake, C...

New blood test for Down syndrome

...Medical Institute researchers have developed a new prenatal blood test that accurately detected Down syndrome ...d offer a safer and faster alternative to invasive prenatal tests such as amniocentesis that pose a small risk...ch are currently considered the "gold standard" in prenatal testing, involve sampling cells in amniotic fluid....

Aberrations in region of chromosome 1q21.1 associated with broad range of disorders in children

...hat might eventually be included in genetic screening panels for people with developmental delays or neuropsychiatric diagnoses. "Counseling in the prenatal setting," the researchers wrote, "will present the greatest challenge: although the likelihood of an abnormal outcome is high in a person with a 1q21....

Consumption of nut products during pregnancy linked to increased asthma in children

...ernal fruit consumption during pregnancy on reducing the risk of wheeze in children, but other factors such as health-consciousness and consumption of prenatal vitamins may have been contributing factors in ways that were undetectable in this study's design. "These findings emphasize the critical important...

UGA researchers discover mechanism that explains how cancer enzyme winds up on ends of chromosomes

...anklin College of Arts and Sciences have shown a mechanism that explains how two essential components of human telomerasenormally active only in early prenatal development but turned back on during cancer growthare "recruited" from distinct sites in the cell to the telomere, an area at the end of a chromosome...

July 2008 highlights

...rod.org/cgi/content/abstract/79/1/36?etoc prenatal programming. Polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS...oworkers provide evidence in a primate model that prenatal exposure to androgens, which are elevated in wome... levels in the fetusessuggesting androgen-mediated prenatal programming may be one of the factors that can co...

Avoiding Spleen Removal for Cooley's Anemia SufferersAvoiding spleen removal for Cooley's anemia suf

...revalence, Cooley's anemia (beta-thalassemia) is an orphan disease, of which studies are rare and not well-funded. Current disease management includes prenatal diagnosis, transfusion therapy, iron chelation and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The hallmark of the disease is ineffective erythropoi...

A new analysis method allows to find out the sex of the baby from the second month of pregnancy

...h for the study, which opens new possibilities in the field of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis. With all these privacy guarantees, the mother can carry out t... sex of the baby as soon as possible, would avoid the processes of invasive prenatal diagnosis such as amniocentesis, chorionic villus biopsy or cordcentesis, w...

Male seahorses are nature's Mr. Mom, Texas A&M researchers say

...ell of the eggs breaks down, and tissue from the male grows up around the eggs in the pouch. After fertilizing the eggs, the male closely controls the prenatal environment of the embryos in his pouch. The male keeps blood flowing around the embryos, controls the salt concentrations in the pouch, and provides ...

Male seahorses are nature's Mr. Mom, Texas A&M researchers say

...ell of the eggs breaks down, and tissue from the male grows up around the eggs in the pouch. After fertilizing the eggs, the male closely controls the prenatal environment of the embryos in his pouch. The male keeps blood flowing around the embryos, controls the salt concentrations in the pouch, and provides ...

Researchers discover gene for branchio-oculo-facial syndrome

...Genetics, and an associate professor of pediatrics, genetics and genomics at BUSM, this discovery will lead to more precise diagnostic testing, enable prenatal diagnosis, suggest directions for new research, and facilitate genetic counseling in these families. This gene is a well-known transcription factor in...

Your baby's brain on drugs (and alcohol and tobacco)

...ston neurologist Michael Rivkin, MD, suggests that prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol, marijuana or tobacco...ton Medical Center and followed there since birth. prenatal exposures were confirmed by a combination of mater...atter and total brain volumes were associated with prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol or cigarettes, says R...

Women's health-related scientific findings presented by University of Pittsburgh researchers

...essor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed audiotapes of 51 prenatal visits to 29 physicians, midwives and nurse practitioners. While all providers asked their patients about their use of tobacco, alcohol and illeg...

St. Jude defines eye cancer gene's role in retinal development

...plays a central role in coordinating retinal proliferation with eye growth during development. Genes in the Myc family carry out vital roles during prenatal development by regulating the proliferation, size, differentiation and survival of cells. Myc genes are also proto-oncogenesgenes in which a mutation ...

Study suggests genetic connection between short stature and arthritis

...ion and whether an individual had one or two copies of the so-called taller version of the variant. A variety of factors, including genetics, diet and prenatal environment, interact to determine how tall someone grows. It is currently thought that genetic factors are responsible for at least 80 percent of the...