Birth Defects Articles & Stories

Food and Fertility - Fact and Fiction

Can eating the right foods help fertility? Or is it more myth than fact. More and more research is emerging that the right foods and healthy lifestyle choices do make a difference in helping to make babies. Read More

Discovery Links Pre-Eclampsia to Diet

Women with the condition pre-eclampsia have been found with red blood cells containing unusually high levels of a compound found in unpasteurized food, according to research published in the journal Reproductive Sciences. The findings are important because they hint at the possibility of this ... Read More

Diet and Lifestyle Changes May Prevent Infertility

A study published in the latest issue of Obstectrics and Gynecology has found that women who followed a combination of five or more lifestyle factors, including changing specific aspects of their diets, experienced more than 80 percent less relative risk of infertility due to ovulatory disorde... Read More

"Fertility Tourism" Carries Health Risks

Women who go to overseas fertility clinics run the risk of higher-than-average multiple pregnancies, which can dramatically increase the chances of high blood pressure, hospital stays, premature labor, fetal disabilities and even death in mother or babies. A study done on 109 British women wi... Read More

Expert Commentary: Amos E. Madanes, M.D. 9/21/2009

The research done at the Oxford Fertility Unit at The John Radcliffe Hospital in England continues to demonstrate the success of the advances that we have made in the last few years in fertility. The study discusses how freezing an embryo – a fertilized egg – and using it at a lat... Read More

Unicellular Test Lets Doctors Weed Out Mutated Embryos

A technique that allows doctors to find dangerous "microdeletions" in human embryo chromosomes can be used to reject embryos prone to developing cancer and other diseases in later life and to implant only healthy embryos, according to a recent study. Up till now, gene assays could detect only ... Read More

In-vitro Baby Born from Immature Frozen Egg

On June second, the first baby conceived from an egg that was matured in the lab before undergoing in-vitro fertilization was born in Canada and is progressing normally. The mother, as well as three other women, became pregnant through a clinical trial at the McGill Reproductive Center in Mon... Read More

Embryonic Stem Cells

Embryonic stem cells have been making headlines recently. But among the talk, there is rarely a pause to explain what embryonic stem cells are, what makes them unique, and why they stir up so much debate. Read More

Pesticides Found in Pregnant Women

Researchers have found the presence of numerous harmful pesticides in the placentas of pregnant women. According to a study by the University of Granada, fifteen different substances linked to pesticides have been found in pregnant women. Additionally, 100% of the women involved in the study ... Read More

Conception Date and Development

A new study shows that the month of conception may impact future academic achievement of children. Scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine have observed a connection between academic progress and the time of year a child was conceived. Led by neonatologist Paul Winchester, res... Read More