A study in the May 1 issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that babies born to mothers with depression are more likely to suffer from significant sleep disturbances at 2 weeks postpartum that continue until 6 months of age.

The maternal health care issues facing women in eastern Burma (also known as Myanmar) are widespread and underreported, according to surveys by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Access to maternal health-care is extremely limited and poor nutrition, anemia and malaria are widespread in eastern Burma, which increases the risk of pregnancy complications, says new research published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.

That's the question posed by leading bioethicists at Duke University Medical Center, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities, who say it's time to confront the challenges that have led to the exclusion of pregnant women from important research that could positively impact maternal and fetal health.

Although maternal suicide after giving birth is a relatively rare occurrence, suicide attempts often have long-lasting effects on the family and the infant.

Some countries in Africa have made the least progress among developing nations worldwide toward reaching targets in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing infant and maternal deaths, according to a report released on Wednesday.

A three-day conference on ways to reduce preventable deaths of newborns and women during pregnancy has opened in London.

A history of maternal epilepsy and its associated treatment may be linked to impaired intelligence later in life, says a new study published in Epilepsia. Dr. Nina Oyen, M.D., of the University of Bergen and Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Bergen, Norway, investigated the I.Q. levels of sons born to mothers with and without epilepsy, and found a correlation between intelligence and the illness.

In many parts of the world, adequate health care for mothers during their pregnancy and childbirth remains an elusive goal. According to the Safe Motherhood Interagency Group, a coalition of United Nations and international health organizations, 15 percent of all pregnancies worldwide present medical complications that are serious enough to require professional health care at a modern clinic or a hospital.