Becoming a parent is commonly imagined to be a joyful and “natural” life event. The reality is often very different. In the early weeks and months of life with a first baby, parents must master new skills…
If you’re born underweight, like this little baby on the left, it can make a world of difference to your lifelong health.
Menzies Health
Tony Abbott is spending this week in North-East Arnhem Land, part of his long-held hope “to be not just the Prime Minister but the Prime Minister for Aboriginal Affairs”. We asked our experts: what stories…
Alzheimer’s disease is typically a disease of later life, and age is the biggest known risk factor for the condition. But babies with Down syndrome, who always develop brains like those with Alzheimer’s…
Dinosaurs are real, believe me.
Mother with baby/Shutterstock
Mass media such as books, TV, and the internet are key sources of information, allowing us to increase our knowledge by learning indirectly about things we’ve never directly experienced. Is this true for…
Although it might sometimes seem that your Facebook feed is overrun with chatter about babies, research from Microsoft has suggested that mums actually spend less time on the site after they have had children…
A four year study at the University of Sydney has found that pregnant mothers and their babies are synchronising immune systems…
Indian women who had migrated to Australia were more likely than Australian-born women to have caesarean sections or instrumental births, the study found.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34547181@N00
Some groups of migrant women in Australia are at a higher risk of medical interventions in childbirth that may lead to health problems for the mother or child, a new study has found. Medical interventions…
Current methods of examining newborn babies’ hearts in the first days of life are not particularly effective.
jeremysalmon/Flickr
More babies die from undiagnosed congenital heart defects than from any other abnormality. But a simple test which is safe, painless and takes only a couple of minutes could help identify these babies…
Hundreds of cases of serious heart defects in newborns are missed in Australia each year.
AAP/Victorian Department of Health
Newborn screening for life-threatening congenital heart defects using pulse oximetry - a simple, low-cost test - is the most accurate detection method and should be adopted internationally for all newborns…
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Health Economics, Wellbeing and Society, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University