This is How the Placenta Developed
	A new organism develops inside the woman's womb due to the placenta, a special organ for delivering food and oxygen from the mother to the fetus. A new research made at the Stanford University School of Medicine and published in the journal Genome Research has revealed the first genetic clues about the ancient origins of the placenta. The study shows that the placenta of all mammals (humans included) evolved from a much simpler tis ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 04:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Being Born Bottom First is Inherited
	About 3-4 % of the human babies are born bottom first. This is the rule in the case of dolphins and whales, as the newborn would drown otherwise, by taking the first breath underwater, but in humans this doubles the risks of complications for the baby (especially of breathing problems at the moment of delivery). A new study published in the British Medical Journal shows that this type of birth is an inherited trait from either ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2008, 17:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Premature Births Mean Less Fertile Individuals
	Premature babies are considered those born before 37 weeks. Even if there are a lot of studies showing the short term effect on the health of the babies of the premature births, a new research investigating about 1.2 million births in Norway pointed the effect of a premature birth in the health of the adults. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that premature babies have an increased ris ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Weak Sex: Newborn Boys Are More Likely to Die Than Newborn Girls
	This is real. Girls learn to read before boys, get better marks in college, and even their brain contains more gray matter. Moreover, boys are medically clearly weaker than girls, as showed by a new research carried out by a team at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Southern California, and published in PNAS: newborn males in developed nations are more likely to die than their female counterparts. The team analyzed the ... [read more >>]
	25 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Meet the Two-Faced Girl
	We do not know if it's the Bhopal accident or just a large population pool, but India comes with really weird human newborn cases. An Indian woman has just delivered a baby girl with two faces. The girl had four eyes, two noses and two mouths. The six-day old baby girl, whose parents are Vinod and Sushma Singh, is already being regarded as a reincarnation of the Hindu God of wisdom Ganesha (the elephant-headed god). The ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Halle Berry Gives Birth to a Baby Girl
	Halle Berry seemed to be pregnant forever – but not anymore. The beautiful actress, aged 41, gave birth to a healthy baby girl yesterday morning at the Cedars Sinai medical Center, following a series of false alarms and a health scare earlier in the day. The actress' representative didn't confirm the news yet, but a source has exclusively revealed to Star magazine some details about the circumstances in which Halle' ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 05:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Jennifer Lopez Finally Gives Birth
	Break out the champagne and let the world know, Jennifer Lopez has finally given birth to her twins late last night! I can almost feel tears coming to my eyes. Kidding. Actually, I am very happy for the Latino diva, but I must confess that my happiness is trumped by relief more than I could possibly explain. I mean, we're all very happy J.Lo finally got her precious bundles of joy, but we're even more relieved that all the media ... [read more >>]
	22 February 2008, 08:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Two-Faced Cat!
	Another freak in the gallery of odd cats: a two-faced one! They may live nine lives, but with a face from SF movies. Renee Cook of Amarillo, Texas, got a real shock when her three-year-old Persian and Calico mix cat Amber delivered this two-faced kitten. "I picked it up and said, 'Oh my goodness, two faces'. I thought it was dead at first because it was cold. But then it started to wiggle and it kept wiggling a ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

50 Years Old Fathers Deliver Healthier Children than Teenage Fathers
	It is said that younger parents deliver healthier babies. But this new research, so far the largest of its kind, and published in the journal Human Reproduction, shows that teenage fathers present a higher risk of having ill babies, the issues varying from pre-term delivery or low birth weight, to death in or near the time of delivery. Oppositely, older fathers, aged 40 and over, did not have a higher risk of unhealthy babies. T ... [read more >>]
	13 February 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Latino Women Are Genetically Predisposed to Preterm Pregnancy
	We know that a 5-year-old Peruvian girl is the world's youngest mother and Latino women may not be very big. But a new study carried out at the Yale School of Medicine and presented at the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine Annual Meeting has discovered that the gene ENPP1 is connected to preterm birth and low birth weight in the case of the Hispanic women. 12 % of the American children are born prematurely (before 37 ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 03:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera Gave Birth!
	Remember I've been telling you that there's an epidemics of sorts going round Hollywood? That's right – all the A-list ladies (and not only) have been getting pregnant, and in all the craze about who's pregnant with whom, how far along and whether it's been conformed or not, I sort of missed the joy (and relief) of announcing that finally someone has had a baby. Well, you know what they say - it never rai ... [read more >>]
	12 January 2008, 06:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do Anorexia, Depression and Childbirth Impact Woman's Sex Life?
	Well, a sad woman may not enjoy sex too much. A hungry one may not have energy to do it. And childbirth requires some recovering time... A new research made by a team led by Dr Frances A. Carter of the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Otago University in New Zealand, and published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, shows that decreased sex drive in women experiencing mental conditions (like anor ... [read more >>]
	08 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Female Contraceptive Method Employs Radio Signals
	Hormones come with unwanted secondary effects, while the knife dreads anyone. The new contraceptive method destined to women involves none of these and lasts just 15 minutes. The procedure has the role of impeding women getting pregnant and implies the use of radio waves for making a lesion at the level of the fallopian tube, connecting the ovary to the uterus. First, the radio signals are employed for inducing a lesion inside ... [read more >>]
	07 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Demographic Boom and Birth Control
	The demographic boom is one of the main causes of the damage we inflict on the planet. Overpopulation refers to the situation when in a region, there are more people than the natural resources can sustain. This was not a problem along human history, as high natality was compensated by high mortality, due to diseases, natural catastrophes, war and slavery. The growth was very slow. But beginning with the 18th century, improved ... [read more >>]
	04 January 2008, 11:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Cesarean Section Can Cause Lung Issues in Babies
	This is turning into a birth choice. Cesarean sections keep the "toy" intact and remove many risks and complications. But, here comes the warning signal: it can make babies vulnerable to breathing issues, up to four times more than those born naturally. These are the results of a Danish research at University of Aarhus, carried on 34,000 cases and published in the "British Medical Journal", which guesses this is due to ... [read more >>]
	17 December 2007, 04:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google’s Baby Delivery Service - On Demand Only
	It’s not the next step in cyber-parenting, it’s not even the announcement of a new service that might be rolled out in an indefinite future, it’s just the strange happenings of two of the Googlers that were lucky enough each to lend a hand in the delivery of two babies. Matthew, an engineer in the Seattle/Kirkland office according to the official Google blog, arrived at work as usual but found that his expectant colleague Min ... [read more >>]
	21 November 2007, 02:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Record Breaking Birth Weight in Twins
	An average baby has at birth around 3.2 kg (7 pounds, 1 ounce). The heaviest baby ever was born in the US in 1879: 23 pounds, 12 ounces (10.7 kg), but he died 11 hours after being born, as too much or too little above/below the average value decreases fitness. The heaviest baby also to survive was born in 1955 in Italy: 22 pounds, 8 ounces (10.15 kg) at birth. In September this year a woman from southern Russia gave birth to ... [read more >>]
	26 October 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 10 Issues that Cause Birth Complications/Death
	Annually, about 500,000 women die of causes related to pregnancy and over 60 million women suffer from severe complications during pregnancy. 30 % of them will have lesions and infections for the rest of their life. Many women in the third world are trapped in a vicious circle of pregnancies, births and lack of care, that leave them exhausted and diseased. In fact, pregnancy can be harmful and even dangerous. 1.Planning. The couple shou ... [read more >>]
	06 October 2007, 05:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

An 8 Kg (17 Pounds) Newborn Girl!
	You or somebody you know may have weighed around 7 pounds, 1 ounce (3.2 kg) at birth. So say the medical books. But this comes to contradict them: in a small Siberia city, a 17-pound, 1 ounce (7.7 kg) baby girl has just been delivered by Tatiana Khalina, 42, the mother of other 11 children. The girl was born on September 17, 2007, through Cesarean section at a maternity clinic in Aleisk, a city of 30,000 people in the Altai r ... [read more >>]
	28 September 2007, 16:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Steroids Can Paralize the Brain
	Listening to steroid-packed boys (such as Stallone and others like him) talking, you would not say they have a very active brain. But a new research showed that the issue is more serious than it might seem: repeated administrations of a steroid employed to increase the survival of unborn premature babies may also rise the likelihood of cerebral palsy, as found by a new research led by Dr. Ronald Wapner, professor of obstetrics and gynecolo ... [read more >>]
	21 September 2007, 06:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Baby Spice Gives Birth to Baby Boy
	As yet another proof that the Spice Girls are no longer, well, exactly that (meaning 'girls'), Emma became the latest member of the former/recently reformed band to give birth to a child over this weekend. Since Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell are all happy mothers for quite some time now and that Emma just joined the club that only leaves Melanie C to become a mommy too. But that's digressing, o ... [read more >>]
	13 August 2007, 06:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Child Born Already Drunk!
	Lack of maternal instinct or severe alcoholism? Polish police announced on Friday that a baby came into the world under the influence of alcohol as his mother was drunk while giving birth! Doctors took the decision of checking his blood-alcohol level when they saw the mother’s condition. What they saw left them speechless. Tests made 12 hours after the boy's birth uncovered a level of 1.2 grammes of alcohol per 1,000 grammes of blo ... [read more >>]
	19 July 2007, 13:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

More Vitamin B9, Less Diformed Babies
	You can eat as much meat, green vegetables, fruit, whole grains as you want, but it seems that even so there is not enough folic acid (vitamin B9) for a pregnant mother and the child she's carrying. A team led by Dr. Philippe De Wals of Université Laval’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine has shown that the addition of folic acid to flours has induced a 46% decrease of the cases of congenital neural tube deformation (es ... [read more >>]
	17 July 2007, 02:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Jason Priestley Is A Daddy
	For those of us that grew up watching "Beverly Hills 90210", Brandon Walsh was the ultimate good-guy. For Jason Priestley that may have been a good thing back then, but for his acting career it turned out to be not such a good thing in the long run. You’ve got to admit one thing. When you look at Jason Priestley, you immediately think of Brandon Walsh. His acting career may not be where he wanted it to be, but he s ... [read more >>]
	09 July 2007, 04:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Jordan Gives Birth to Baby Girl
	Katie Price (a.k.a. Jordan) has given birth this morning at the Portland Hospital in London. Peter Andre is the proud father of a baby girl that weighs 6 pounds and 13 ounces, and who was delivered by Caesarean section shortly before 9am. The couple already have a 2-year-old son, Junior, while Jordan has another boy, the five-year-old Harvey, with footballer Dwight Yorke. Jordan underwent some very heavy criticism for the fac ... [read more >>]
	29 June 2007, 09:39GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Two Sets of Sextuplets in One Day!
	Naturally, the occurrence of twins amongst humans is rare and somehow linked to genetics. For example, in a Nigerian tribe, the twins' occurrence is very common. Triplets are quite an exception amongst humans. But the hormonal bouleversement induced by former use of contraceptive pills or fertility treatments have induced ultimately rabbit fertility in human females. Two sets of sextuplets have been born in di ... [read more >>]
	12 June 2007, 10:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Cocaine Intake Means Dumber Children
	Cocaine and making children do not combine. It's clear that maternal drug can induce lasting effects on children. A new research reveals that young schoolchildren of cocaine-using mothers performed more poorly on attention tests. The investigation was made on 415 African-American children when aged 5 or 7 (now 14 to 16 years old) from a poor population living in the Miami inner city. 219 of the children had mothers w ... [read more >>]
	12 June 2007, 03:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sex After Pregnancy
	Many men accuse low sex drive due to the kids' presence around the house. But the birth of a child should not mean the end of our sex lives. Indeed, you should forget about it for 2-6 weeks, until bleeding (lochia) has stopped. In the case of cesarean deliveries, there is also an issue of wound healing. There are also many reasons why women have low sex drive after birth: overall discomfort and fatigue, pain in case of stitche ... [read more >>]
	11 June 2007, 14:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Birth Weight, Linked to Adult Health and Income
	Size does matter! Especially when it's about birth weight, with significant and lasting effects. A new study shows that weighing less than 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) at birth enhances the probability of quitting high-school by one-third, decreases yearly gains by about 15 % and induces in people in their 30s and 40s the health of a 12 years old person. The research, the first of its kind, analyzed data gathered in over 35 years on ove ... [read more >>]
	06 June 2007, 05:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rapid Syphilis Tests Decrease Stillbirth, Neonatal Death and Malformations
	Congenital syphilis is extremely severe: it frequently induces stillbirths or neonatal death and children who survive are usually disabled. Syphilis is often undiagnosed or untreated in pregnant women, even when mothers are involved in anti-HIV programs. A new approach from Weill Cornell Medical College and the Groupe Haitien d'Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes (GHESKIO) has revealed that a new rapid s ... [read more >>]
	30 May 2007, 04:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Aspirin for Safer Pregnancy
	Pregnant women are advised to avoid aspirin. But aspirin seems rather to protect against pregnancy complications like pre-eclampsia, as found by a new complex review of 31 researches involving over 32,000 women. The investigations pointed to the fact that women ingesting a low-dose aspirin pill daily against blood clotting presented a 10% lower complications (such as very premature delivery) levels. Still, doctors warn that aspirin ... [read more >>]
	18 May 2007, 17:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Birth Infection with HIV Triggers Uterus Cancer in Half of the Women
	The world is still in search of an anti-HIV cure, but even so, the antivirals employed currently can manage to prolong the life of the infected ones for decades. Generations of children who could not reach sexual maturity before, are able to do this now. But these youngsters do not grow healthy, as the root of the evil could not be cut off. Girls born with HIV-infection and sexually active were found to have higher levels ... [read more >>]
	30 April 2007, 06:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Increasingly Less Males in US and Japan
	The weakness of the males is increasingly showing up. A new research reveals that, in the past three decades, the number of male births has decreased yearly in the U.S. and Japan. The University of Pittsburgh-led research found significantly fewer boys being born relative to girls and that a rising percentage of dead fetuses to be male translated to 135,000 fewer white males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan over the las ... [read more >>]
	10 April 2007, 05:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sex Problems and Resuming Sex after Birth, Linked to Race
	A new research made at Birmingham, UK, found that about 33 % of women still experience painful sexual intercourse a year after they gave birth and less than 15 % were completely recovered. The research was made on 482 women, aged over 16 and from all ethnic groups, who followed a self-administered questionnaire at least a year after their most recent birth and the baby had no congenital abnormalities. "87 % complained of at least ... [read more >>]
	29 March 2007, 07:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Japanese Have the Lowest Sex Drive in the World Because of the Web...
	It seems there is a huge gap between Japan's sex toys, porn, hentai and sexy TV shows and the way real sex occurs there. Japan's population is estimated at around 127,463,611 and is correlated with one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world, of 81.25 years (in fact, today’s oldest living person is a Japanese woman). But the Japanese population is rapidly aging (about 20 % is over 65) and the effect of ... [read more >>]
	16 March 2007, 12:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Second Born Twin Is More Likely to Die
	If you're the second twin, just thank God you're alive! Because a nine-year British research, conducted between 1994 and 2003, found that being a second born twin means a slightly higher risk of dying from fatal complications during birth. Twins born preterm (before 36 weeks) have no difference in the overall death level between the first and second, as they are already exposed to a higher risk by prematurity. But the ... [read more >>]
	07 March 2007, 07:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Pregnancy Length Varies Genetically Amongst Human Races
	A new British research found a very different pattern amongst races and the possibility of complications during labor, whether before, during or after giving birth. South Asian women are at a higher risk of delivering babies prone to perinatal mortality (death before, during or shortly after birth) compared to black or white women. The World Health Organization states as post-term pregnancy when it passes of 41 weeks from ... [read more >>]
	06 March 2007, 10:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia