A new study offers a recipe for parents who want smarter kids: maternal micronutrient supplements during pregnancy, early life nurturing, happy moms, and educated parents.

Pluripotent stem cells can develop into most tissues of the organism, but they cannot develop into extra-embryonic tissue — the placenta or yolk sac, for example — like the one-celled fertilized egg or two-celled zygote. Researchers found that by blocking a specific microRNA, pluripotent stem cells can regain the ability to become extra-embryonic tissue, providing a way to expand the developmental potential of iPC cells with implications for regenerative medicine and stem cell-based therapies.

Worldwide, an estimated 119,000 children are born with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) each year, a new study shows. The study provides the first-ever estimates of the proportion of women who drink during pregnancy, as well as estimates of FAS by country, World Health Organization region and worldwide.

Replacing biomass and kerosene cookstoves used throughout the developing world with clean-burning ethanol stoves may reduce hypertension and cardiovascular risk in pregnant women, according to new research.

Depression is very common during pregnancy, with as many as one in seven women suffering from the illness and more than a half million women impacted by postpartum depression in the U.S. alone. The disorder not only affects the mother’s mood, but has also been linked to influencing the newborn’s development, according to recent research. In a study, researchers found that BDNF levels change during pregnancy, and can cause depression in the mother and low birth weight in the baby.

While in vitro gametogenesis carries a promise to unravel the fundamental mechanisms of devastating genetic forms of infertility and to pave the way to a range of new therapies, the technique also raises a number of vexing legal and ethical questions that society should address before IVG becomes ready for prime-time clinical use in human patients, a trio of scholars argues.

For women with a prior low transverse incision cesarean delivery, the decision to undergo a vaginal delivery or elect to have a repeat cesarean delivery has important clinical and economic ramifications.

Despite the mandatory addition of folic acid to enriched grain products in the United States, many women still do not consume adequate amounts of this important vitamin, according to a new editorial.

New insight has been gained into the everyday hazards of life in the late Byzantine Empire, sometime around the early 13th century, as well as the evolution of Staphylococcus saprophyticus, a common bacterial pathogen.

Even before they are born, premature babies may display alterations in the circuitry of their developing brains, according to a first-of-its kind research study.