China recently banned a number of crude and insensitive slogans that promote China's one-child-per-family policy.

Countries throughout the Americas are joining together to observe World Breastfeeding Week.

Treatment with the hormone progesterone reduces the risk of premature birth for a woman with a short cervix.

Cesarean Delivery Rates

At a time when national rates of cesarean delivery have climbed above 30%, a four-year study of patients receiving an alternative method of obstetric care experienced a significantly lower rate of cesarean births.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, reports that a cohort of women exposed to a safe, alternative method of maternity care had a 5.3 percent cesarean delivery rate compared to a 11.8 percent of women who received more traditional care.

USA Today examined the practice known as placentophagy, in which the placenta of a pregnant woman is saved, dried and emulsified.

An informed choice on infant feeding can have a positive long-term effect on the health of both the mother and baby.

Cole County Judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of a new state law that allows midwives to deliver infants at home.

For women insured through large employer private plans, the average cost of having a baby in the United States in 2004 was more than $8,000.

Very low birth weight infants are significantly more likely to survive when delivered in hospitals with high-level neonatal intensive care units that care for more than 100 such newborns annually than are those delivered in comparable facilities that provide care to fewer than 100 such children every year.

A study conducted at the University of Granada recommends clamping two minutes after delivery instead of 20 seconds, as it is usually done.

The infant mortality rate in the United States in 2004 was 6.78 infant (under 1 year of age) deaths per 1,000 live births, not significantly different from the rate of 6.84 in 2003.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and the March of Dimes announce the launch of the South Carolina Birth Defects Program.

With pre-term births a major international health problem, scientists are reporting an advance toward developing a much-needed, noninvasive test for predicting when pregnant women are about to deliver early.

Kentucky Department for Public Health, Local Hospitals Join March of Dimes, Johnson and Johnson Pediatric Institute to Reduce Preterm Births by 15 Percent.

Older mothers with normal, full-term pregnancies - particularly first-time older mothers - were more likely to undergo Caesarean delivery than were younger women with similarly low-risk pregnancies.