Articles about 'pregnancy'

Smoking, lack of exercise, bad diet and our genes are all well-known risk factors for heart disease, cancer and diabetes. But, as researchers are beginning to understand, the environment in the womb as we first begin to grow may also determine our future.

How difficult is it to conceive? According to a widely-held view, fewer than one in three embryos make it to term, but a new study from a researcher at the University of Cambridge suggests that human embryos are not as susceptible to dying in the first weeks after fertilisation as often claimed.

Homerton Fellow Dr Michelle Oyen explains why she has dedicated her working life to investigating why pregnancies go wrong.

Eating a high fat and high sugar diet when pregnant leads to metabolic impairments in both the mother and her unborn child, which may 'program' them for potential health complications later in life, a study in mice has shown.

A complication of pregnancy that causes the mother’s blood pressure to rise – often fatally – is more common in women of African descent than any other. Research in Uganda by African and Cambridge researchers is helping to uncover why.

New research provides the first clear evidence that the amount of nutrients transported to the foetus by the placenta adjusts according to both the foetal drive for growth, and the mother’s physical ability to provide.

Health warnings about complications related to Zika virus significantly increased demand for abortions in Latin American countries, according to a new study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The babies of obese women who develop gestational diabetes are five times as likely to be excessively large by six months of pregnancy, according to new research led by the University of Cambridge. The study, which shows that excessive fetal growth begins weeks before at-risk women are screened for gestational diabetes, suggests that current screening programmes may take place too late during pregnancy to prevent lasting health impacts on the offspring.

Hidden tumours that cause potentially fatal high blood pressure but lurk undetected in the body until pregnancy have been discovered by a Cambridge medical team.

The new threshold for diabetes in pregnancy recently introduced by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) misses a significant number of women at risk of serious complications, a report published today in the journal Diabetologia shows.