Spina bifida is a type of neural tube defect, meaning that a fetus’ developing spine and spinal cord don’t fully form and ...

The most recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reveals cases of gastroschisis, a serious birth defect of the abdominal wall, have more than doubled over the past 18 years in the U.S. Babies ...

Need more of a reason to eat a healthy diet? Pregnant women who load up on fruits, veggies and whole grains have a reduced risk of having babies with neural tube defects, such as spina bifida or cleft ...

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) recently caused a 2-month-old girl in Pennsylvania to suffer severe hearing loss after it was passed to her in the womb. While the virus can exist in a person for life without ...

There's a largely hidden epidemic of birth defects running through the world's infants and children, striking about 8 million every year, about 6 percent of those born, according to a new study. An ...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – A long-awaited study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a link between tainted tap water at a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina and increased risk ...

Several drugs often prescribed to pregnant women are being linked to serious birth defects. The concern is with two medications. They were created to control epileptic seizures. But the drugs, ...

NEW YORK, N.Y. (WPVI) -- Researchers are also learning more about HOW the Zika virus can cause the serious birth defect microcephaly. Several mouse studies show when a mother is infected in the first ...

More than one-fourth of privately-insured and one-third of Medicaid-enrolled women of childbearing age filled prescriptions for opioid-based (narcotic) painkillers between 2008 and 2012, according to ...

As former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), we have spent our careers protecting ...

Ann Arbor, August 26, 2025 - An analysis using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) among 5,374 women of reproductive age indicates that two thirds of women within ...