Child Birth | featured news

A simple treatment - a hormone-containing vaginal gel - significantly reduces premature births among pregnant women who are at high risk because of a problem with the cervix, government researchers reported Wednesday....

The maternity business has experienced a recession, too, it appears. Births fell 4% from 2007 to 2009, the biggest drop for any two-year period since the mid-1970s, according to federal government data released Thursday.

For a fee, Chinese women received room and board and a chance to deliver their babies in the United States and become mothers to instant U.S. citizens.

Moms-to-be who take prescription opioid painkillers such as codeine, hydrocodone or oxycodone (Oxycontin) may increase the risk of birth defects ...

Close birth spacing may put a second-born child at higher risk for autism, suggests a preliminary study based on more than a half-million California children....

“For the first time we can clearly see the mechanics of a vaginal delivery,” he said. “For years, obstetricians have relied on very crude methods of understanding complications like cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD), which translates when the baby fails to descend into the birth canal and there is a rest in cervical dilatation, which ultimately leads to a C-section.”

Premature births may finally be starting to inch down, says a new report from the March of Dimes.

Police said a new father faces drug charges because he lit up a marijuana joint, instead of a cigar, to celebrate his child's birth at a western Pennsylvania hospital. Police aren't identifying the man found smoking the pot in a designated smoking area of Uniontown Hospital Tuesday morning, but said he'll face marijuana possession charges.

A 10-year-old girl has given birth in southern Spain and authorities are evaluating whether to let her and her family retain custody of the baby, an official said Tuesday.

Singer Celine Dion, 42, gave birth Saturday to premature twin boys.