Fertility, Pregnancy & Birth, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 15, 2023

Endometriosis may be caused by a common gut bacteria, small study suggests

A bacteria commonly found in the mouth and gut could be what triggers endometriosis, a small new study suggests. And the early research hints that antibiotics could combat the painful and chronic disease that causes tissues lining the uterus to grow outside of it. Scientists in Japan discovered the link...

Jun 29, 2023

Controversial 'vaginal seeding' shows promise in small trial, but questions remain

Vaginal seeding, a controversial practice of exposing babies born by cesarean section to their parent's vaginal fluids after birth, may benefit newborns' gut microbiomes, a new study suggests. Babies born by C-section don't have the same gut microbes as those born vaginally, potentially because they're not exposed to their parent's...

Jul 13, 2023

1st over-the-counter birth control pill approved by FDA

For the first time, an over-the-counter birth control pill has been approved for use in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday (July 13). The daily oral contraceptive, called Opill, will be available without a prescription at drug stores, convenience stores and grocery stores, as well as...

Jul 13, 2023

Maternal death rates doubled in the past 20 years in the US

Maternal mortality rates in the U.S. dramatically worsened from 1999 to 2019, a new study finds. The research, published in July in the journal JAMA, reveals maternal mortality rates more than doubled in the U.S. in the past 20 years and bolsters existing evidence that certain racial and ethnic groups...

Aug 2, 2023

Muscle-healing gel could be a 'new frontier' for treating pelvic floor damage, very early study suggests

A new injectable gel could help mend people's pelvic floors if they've suffered damage during childbirth, an early study in rats and human tissue finds. According to Suzanne Hagen, a professor of health services research at Glasgow Caledonian University who was not involved in the study, current treatment options for...

Aug 21, 2023

'Complete' twist of fallopian tube sent girl to hospital with sudden belly pain

Doctors discovered that a girl's sudden and mysterious belly pain had a rare cause: One of her fallopian tubes was completely twisted. This condition is rare, overall, but especially rare in children. The 11-year-old girl's severe abdominal pain had come on over the course of a day and triggered nausea...

Aug 28, 2023

New blood test could make preeclampsia easier to predict, early study suggests

A blood test given as early as the end of the first trimester of pregnancy could help identify patients at the highest risk of preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition associated with high blood pressure in pregnancy, before it occurs. Preeclampsia dramatically raises the odds of stillbirth and preterm birth, as...

Sep 7, 2023

Most advanced lab-made human embryo models look like the real thing

The most advanced lab-made human embryo models look like the real thing — they resemble, though don't perfectly replicate, natural embryos about 14 days into development. These lab-made embryo models open a window into the earliest stages of human development, when a fertilized egg first starts dividing and implants in...

Sep 15, 2023

New mothers more likely to experience pareidolia, when your brain thinks it see faces in inanimate objects

A cheeky smile from a burnt piece of toast or a sullen stare from the eyes of a wall socket — when you start to see faces in inanimate objects, you may be experiencing pareidolia, a phenomenon in which people perceive significant images in otherwise random visual patterns. And according...

Sep 20, 2023

Should we rethink our legal definition of a human embryo?

Scientists can now create embryo-like structures from animal and human stem cells in the lab, and recently, researchers unveiled the most advanced human embryo models yet, which resemble natural embryos up to 14 days after fertilization. But this research has raised legal and ethical questions about what an embryo is...

Oct 25, 2023

Scientists decode 'LEGO protein' that makes sperm swim

For the first time, researchers have unraveled the structure of a protein that enables sperm to swim. The protein sits in the cell membrane of sperm and helps transport positively charged sodium and hydrogen ions in and out of the cell. This is an important role for regulating the cell's...

Nov 9, 2023

What causes spotting between periods?

Bleeding between periods can be unnerving, although most people who menstruate experience this at some point in their lives. Intermenstrual bleeding broadly refers to bleeding from the vagina that occurs between a person's expected menstrual periods, and it includes spotting, which refers to relatively light blood loss. Intermenstrual bleeding is...

Dec 8, 2023

New syndrome identified in children exposed to fentanyl in the womb

A distinct pattern of birth defects has been identified in children of mothers who used fentanyl illicitly during pregnancy. This pattern, so far reported in 10 children, appears to be a new syndrome that's never been described before, doctors reported in September in the journal Genetics in Medicine Open. All...

Dec 13, 2023

Cannabis use in pregnancy linked to small birth size, other poor outcomes

Using cannabis during pregnancy may come with a higher risk of poor outcomes, such as babies being born small for their gestational age, a new study suggests. Among pregnant people who use cannabis, the risks are the highest for those who use the drug in both the first trimester and...

Dec 14, 2023

Baby is born alive after growing in mother's abdomen for 29 weeks

A woman in France went to the hospital with abdominal pain but soon learned that she was in the second trimester of a rare ectopic pregnancy, in which the fetus was growing in her abdomen. Ectopic pregnancy refers to a phenomenon in which a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than...