Cocaine use by pregnant women has been reported to cause fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. We hypothesized that human neonates exposed to cocaine via maternal use during pregnancy might manifest changes in beat-to-beat heart rate variability, similar to those described in experimental animals. In this preliminary report, we present findings from the first systematic analysis of heart ...

Asynchronous bilateral torsion of the spermatic cord in the newborn is extremely rare. We report such a case in a 4-day-old boy with subsequent operative discovery of prior in utero torsion of the contralateral spermatic cord. The diagnosis was made by physical examination, transillumination test, color Doppler ultrasound, and confirmed by emergent surgical exploration. To our knowledge, the pr...

This paper provides estimates of the effects of in utero exposure to contaminated drinking water on fetal health. To do this, we examine the universe of birth records and drinking water testing results for the state of New Jersey from 1997 to 2007. Our data enable us to compare outcomes across siblings who were potentially exposed to differing levels of harmful contaminants from drinking water ...

BACKGROUND Measuring mercury in newborn bloodspots to determine fetal exposures is a novel methodology with many advantages. Questions remain, however, about its reliability as an estimate of newborn exposure to mercury. METHODS We studied mercury concentrations in paired bloodspots and cord blood from a convenience sample of 48 Minnesota women and infants. RESULTS The limit of detection fo...

We conducted a case-referent study of the effect of exposure to bisphenol-A on fetal growth in utero in full-term, live-born singletons in Alberta, Canada. Newborns <10 percentile of expected weight for gestational age and sex were individually matched on sex, maternal smoking and maternal age to referents with weight appropriate to gestational age. Exposure of the fetus to bisphenol-A was esti...

BACKGROUND An adequate iodine supply in utero and shortly after birth is known to be crucial to an individual's physical and mental development. The question of whether iodine supplementation later in life can exert a favorable influence on the mental performance of iodine-deficient populations was addressed in various studies, but with contradictory results. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study w...

In utero electroporation is a powerful tool to transfect and manipulate neural-precursor cells of the rodent parietal cortex and their progeny in vivo. Although this technique can potentially target numerous brain areas, reliability of transfection in some brain regions is low or physical access is limited. Here we present a new in utero electroporation configuration based on the use of three e...

M ANY hematologic studies have been made on the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hut since few have dealt with the children irradiated in utero,14 we have investigated the general hematologic findings in these children. A group of children exposed to the Hiroshima A-Bomb while in utero and a nonexposed group have been examined yearly at the Atomic Bomb Casualty C...

Epialleles are genomic loci at which the epigenetic state can stably vary amongst individuals of a given population. Although first described and still best understood in plants, in recent years we have come to realize that epigenomic landscapes in mammals can also show considerable inter-individual variation. Such mammalian epialleles could arise through genetic influences, or have nongenetic ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Holoprosencephaly is a rare developmental brain abnormality with a range of severity. We describe our experience in diagnosing holoprosencephaly in the fetus with in utero MR imaging. We hypothesized that including in utero MR imaging in the diagnostic pathway will improve the detection of holoprosencephaly compared with ultrasonography and allow better assessment of the ...