The Mother and Child Foundation

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Here’s another reason for pregnant women to take folic acid supplements: they help prevent fetal heart malformations, new research from the Netherlands suggests.

“Given the relatively high prevalence of congenital heart defects worldwide, our findings are important for public health,” Dr. Ingrid M. van Beynum of Radboud University in Nijmegen and her colleagues write.

Folic acid supplements are now recommended for all pregnant women, and women planning on becoming pregnant, in order to prevent birth defects involving the neural tube such as spina bifida. Many countries, including the US, now require bread and other wheat products to be fortified with folic acid for this reason, but this practice hasn’t been adopted in The Netherlands.

While there’s been some evidence that folic acid may help prevent heart-related birth defects too, van Beynum and her team write, “this has not yet been definitively established.” Such defects are quite common, they note, occurring in up to 2 out of every 100 newborns worldwide.

via MedlinePlus.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children born extremely preterm may face a much higher-than-average risk of developing autism later in childhood, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of 219 children born before the 26th week of pregnancy, 8 percent met the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 11. That compared with none of 153 classmates who were born full-term and included in a comparison group.

via MedlinePlus.

In the new study, which looked at placentas from 222 preterm births, the researchers reported that cerebral palsy is associated with connective tissue inflammation in the umbilical cord. The inflammation — and infection — occurs more often in cases of preterm labor and premature rupturing of the amniotic sac, and is less common in premature births that occur because of preeclampsia, the study found.

via MedlinePlus.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Eating lots of vegetables and fruits during pregnancy may lower the chance of having a baby with certain allergies, hint study findings from Japan.

Greater intake of green and yellow vegetables, citrus fruit, and veggies and fruits high in beta carotene (generally those colored red and orange) may lessen the risk of having a baby with eczema (itchy, dry, red patched skin), Dr. Yoshihiro Miyake at Fukuoka University and colleagues found.

Foods high in vitamin E, found in some green vegetables, similarly may lessen the risk of having a wheezy infant, they report in the journal Allergy.

Beta carotene and vitamin E are two of many vegetable and fruit antioxidants thought to benefit health. But prior investigations of maternal antioxidant intake and childhood allergies offered conflicting findings. This area of research “is still developing,” Miyake noted in an email to Reuters Health.

via MedlinePlus.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who take years to get pregnant are more likely to give birth to unhealthy babies, new research from Finland shows.

Dr. Kaisa Raatikainen and colleagues from Kuopio University Hospital also found that these women were at greater risk of having problems during pregnancy and labor, such as developing pregnancy-related diabetes and infections of the membranes surrounding the fetus.

via MedlinePlus.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Even under Canada’s system of universal healthcare, low-income women are less likely than their wealthier counterparts to receive epidural pain relief during childbirth, a new study finds.

The findings mirror those of studies from the U.S. and other countries, and suggest that factors other than health insurance are at work, according to the researchers.

via MedlinePlus.

Fertility treatment is so common that one child in every primary school year group is thought to have been conceived in a fertility clinic.

But the growth of IVF may have come at a cost to a small, but significant, minority of children. Studies have shown that test-tube babies are slightly more likely to suffer from birth defects.

via Mail Online.

Australian researchers followed 2,366 infants born to women enrolled in a pregnancy study and found that those who were breastfed for longer than six months were able to cope better with stress and had a lower risk of mental health problems later in life. And a new study shows that the later an infant is introduced to solid food, the less their chance of being obese as an adult.

via HealthNews.com.

BEIJING (AFP) – Melamine-laced milk products have been found on sale in China, state media said on Monday, more than a year after the chemical was blamed for six deaths in a huge scandal over contaminated dairy goods.

Authorities in the southwestern province of Guizhou found that products made by three food companies contained illegally high levels of the toxic substance, the China Daily said.

via Yahoo! Health.