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After New York publicly celebrated its most expansive abortion bill, allowing abortion up to the point of birth in many cases and performed by non-doctors, a conservative Christian group launched a nationwide pro-life campaign that will culminate with an event in New York City to show that "every life is made in the image of God." Focus on the Family's 12-week campaign, dubbed "See Life Clearly," leads up to a May 4 event called "Alive From New York" in the heart of Times Square. “We’re looking to fill Times Square with pro-life Americans, and it will feature live music, compelling...

Exposures of pregnant women and children to common thyroid-hormone-disrupting toxins may be linked to the increased incidence of brain development disorders, according to a review published in Endocrine Connections. The review describes how numerous, common chemicals can interfere with normal thyroid hormone actions, which are essential for normal brain development in foetuses and young children, and suggests a need for greater public health intervention. We have reviewed the documented exposures of pregnant women and children to mixtures of thyroid-hormone-disrupting chemicals and propose that the data sets provide a plausible link to the recent increased incidence of neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism...

Pregnant women who take drugs like Ritalin and Concerta for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely than those who don’t to have babies with heart deformities and other birth defects, a recent study suggests. Researchers examined data on more than 1.8 million pregnancies in the U.S., including 2,072 women who used methylphenidate (Ritalin, Concerta, Daytrana) and 5,571 who took an amphetamine (Adderall) during their first trimester. Overall, women who took methylphenidate were 11 percent more likely to have a baby with birth defects and 28 percent more likely to have infants with heart malformations than women who didn’t...

California - A new study has found that smoking marijuana is increasing among pregnant women in California, which leads to health concerns about the unborn child. The study was published on Dec. 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, according to Fox News, and used the medical records of 279,000 women residing in California who were on Kaiser Permanente, a health care service. Women who agreed to participate were asked to answer a questionnaire when they were about eight weeks pregnant, and take a drug test to see if they tested positive for marijuana use. In the study,...

Mothers who experience an infection severe enough to require hospitalization during pregnancy are at higher risk of having a child with autism. Two new studies from MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School shed more light on this phenomenon and identify possible approaches to preventing it. In research on mice, the researchers found that the composition of bacterial populations in the mother’s digestive tract can influence whether maternal infection leads to autistic-like behaviors in offspring. They also discovered the specific brain changes that produce these behaviors. “We identified a very discrete brain region that seems to be modulating all...

The images tell a heartbreaking story: Zika’s calamitous attack on the brains of babies — as seen from the inside. With a macabre catalog of brain scans and ultrasound pictures, a new study details the devastation done to 45 Brazilian babies whose mothers were infected with Zika during pregnancy. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Radiology, is the most comprehensive collection of such images so far, and it reveals a virus that can launch assaults beyond microcephaly, the condition of unusually small heads that has become the sinister signature of Zika. Most of the babies in the study were...

The researchers studied acetaminophen use in nearly 7,800 women living in Bristol, England, and then surveyed these women seven years later about their child’s behavior. They found that compared to women who did not take the drug during pregnancy, acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with a variety of behavioral issues in children. Compared to the children of women who did not take the drug, children of women who did take acetaminophen had a 42 percent increased risk of conduct problems, a 31 percent increased risk in hyperactivity disorders and a 29 percent increased risk in emotional problems in their...

“Unborn baby shown grimacing in womb as mother smokes,” is the somewhat misleading headline in The Daily Telegraph. The news comes after researchers released dramatic images of babies in the womb taken using 4D ultrasound scanners. 4D scanners provide real-time moving images of babies in the womb.

On March 15, the North Dakota senate approved a bill that prevents abortions from being performed once a developing child’s heartbeat is detected in the mother’s womb. This heartbeat can usually be heard “six to seven weeks into a pregnancy,” so it’s after that point that abortions will be prohibited in the state if Gov. Jack Dalrymple signs the bill. Besides protecting life once a heartbeat is detected, North Dakota lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting “sex-selective abortions and abortions based on a diagnosis of genetic abnormality.” Until this current pro-life push by North Dakota lawmakers, the most significant abortion ban...

When Claire Ives was seven months pregnant with her third child, she used a handheld device to listen to her unborn son's heartbeat. As she turned the machine on, she thought something had malfunctioned. "I thought I wasn't listening right or something," Ives, a nurse in London, told ABCNews.com. "I didn't believe his [heart] rate could be that fast." Ives' son had a heart rate of about 300 beats per minute, nearly double the normal 160. After doctors were alerted to the baby's elevated heart rate, Ives delivered her son, Edward Ives, five weeks early via emergency cesarean at the...

German zoologist Ernst Haeckel is perhaps most famous for defending evolution with the argument that creatures replay their evolutionary past when developing in the womb. Since Darwin's time, textbooks have reiterated that early embryos of many vertebrates, including humans, have tiny pouches that reflect an evolutionary fish stage. More recently, embryologists thoroughly refuted that concept, and others have shown that Haeckel's drawings were partially faked. And a new online video taken from 3-D scans of a developing baby's face should bury Haeckel's old and uninformed argument. Embryologist and evolutionist Michael Richardson and colleagues dropped a bomb on Haeckel's long-held concept...

Leyna Gonzalez is now a happy, active 20-month-old. However, when she was in her mother's womb a rare tumor was rapidly growing in her mouth. But in the first case of its kind, UM/Jackson fetal surgeons were able to penetrate the amniotic sac with a small scope and successfully remove the tumor in utero. The tumor can easily be seen in a routine ultrasound taken at 17 weeks.

Public release date: 9-Apr-2012 Contact: Phyllis Brown phyllis.brown@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu 916-734-9023 University of California - Davis Health System This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese. A major study of the relationships between maternal metabolic conditions and the risk that a child will be born with a neurodevelopmental disorder has found strong links between maternal diabetes and obesity and the likelihood of having a child with autism or another developmental disability. Conducted by researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute, the study found that mothers who were obese were 1-2/3 times more likely to have a child with autism...

Amid continued protests from Democrats, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell on Wednesday signed into law a controversial bill requiring Virginia women to undergo an ultrasound procedure prior to having an abortion. The bill sparked national debate this month over a provision that would have required many women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds, which opponents decried as medically unnecessary and physically invasive. McDonnell, a conservative who opposes abortion rights, ultimately requested that mandate be stripped. The Virginia House of Delegates passed a revised version last week that allows women to "reject" a transvaginal ultrasound and instead opt for an abdominal ultrasound, which generally...

Unborn Twins Interact in the Womb at 14 weeks Into Pregnancy Padova, Italy -- An Italian researcher is gaining more attention into his research published last October on twins and the relationships they develop -- starting in the womb. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/13/unborn-twins-interact-in-the-womb-at-14-weeks-into-pregnancy/

"Some people think that my life began at birth, but my life's journey began long before I was born."

The principal of Oakwood Elementary School was put on administrative leave Friday as school officials continued their investigation of plastic human fetus dolls given to students by an employee. It was not known if Principal Sheila Tillett Holas knew about the dolls or approved the distribution, The Virginia-Pilot reports. The employee who gave the students the dolls was put on administrative leave Thursday. Elementary students given fetus dolls 12:25 p.m. A Virginia school employee was place on administrative leave Thursday after reports that the worker distributed plastic human fetus dolls to students at an elementary school. The Virginian-Pilot reports that...

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATHVaccines made with fetal cells causing autism?Exclusive: Jill Stanek looks at potential link between disorder, injections Posted: April 28, 20101:00 am Eastern By Jill Stanek EPA researchers publishing a study in the Feb. 16 issue of Environmental Science & Technology were "surprise[ed]" to find a worldwide jump in the incidence of autism beginning in 1988. Thus, the study concluded, "Although the debate about the nature of increasing autism continues, the potential for this increase to be real and involve exogenous environmental stressors exists." According to the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, 1988 was...

Imagine being able to image life as it happens by capturing video of the embryonic heart before it begins beating. A professor at the University of Houston, in collaboration with scientists at Baylor College of Medicine, is doing just that. Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at UH, and his colleagues in the Texas Medical Center are documenting the formation of the mammalian heart through a high-resolution, non-invasive imaging device, providing perhaps the best live imagery taken of the vital organ. "Everything we know about early development of the heart and formation of...

Study: Chemicals in plastic can make boys act more like girlsBy Rosemary Black DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Monday, November 16th 2009, 4:09 PM Chemicals found in many plastics are causing little boys to act more like little girls, according to new research. A team at the University of Rochester studying the safety of phthalates -- chemicals in the plastic used in many household objects – found that they can actually disrupt hormones, according to BBC News. The chemicals affect the baby's developing brain by deactivating testosterone, the male sex hormone, according to the BBC. In the study, scientists tested urine...