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 ...

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

Two-thirds of women in their child-bearing years have an increased risk for birth defects due to a lifestyle factor they can change, a new study says. These risk factors -- low levels of vitamin B9 ...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Pregnant women who are exposed to coal smoke and pesticides are up to four times more likely to have babies with serious birth defects than women not exposed to these chemicals, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...