birth

Pregnancy-induced changes in the immune system are key to a successful birth. Understanding those changes could allow researchers to protect both mother and child.

Aberrant immune activation, the main cause of prematurity and stillbirths, could be preventable through interventions such as maternal vaccination. 

Milk fortifiers of human origin show no evident advantage in the development of the gut microbiota of premature infants over fortifiers derived from cows, while the intake of the mother’s own milk does, two studies suggest.

Soranus of Ephesus’s manual shaped the way midwifery was practiced for more than a millennium.

Researchers integrated information from 45 protein, metabolite, and immune data points to identify a window two to four weeks before a pregnant person will go into labor.

Countries with populations whose average adult height grew late last century are more likely to have high rates of babies delivered surgically.

Signaling pathways triggered by the mother’s immune system may cause complications during fetal development.

Vaginal birth leads to changes in the development of offsprings’ microbiomes not seen among mice born via C-section, which researchers suspect might contribute to the weight differences.