The 31-year-old passenger of AirAsia jumbo jet on flight from Penang to Kuching (Malaysia) gave birth to a baby boy as the plane was at the height of about 2000 feet (600 meters). The baby was delivered by a doctor who happened to be on board and was assisted by flight attendants. Full story

Some glorious day in December Gisele Bündchen, 29, is going to give birth to a girl; meanwhile she is walking about with a baby bump that has visibly grown. Saturday, October 24, was the latest she let us admire the way her child is coming on while she was having lunch in a West Village restaurant. Full story

Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri, is a frequenter on the lists of most stylish celebrity children. One of the reasons behind that is pretty simple – the girl's clothes are estimated at a staggering sum of £2 million. Full story

Strange as it seems, but some moms experience kind of euphoria when they see their baby crying. Other women get negative feelings, and even disgust. A study looking at reasons for maternal neglect found that such opposite behavior patterns have their root in different brain chemical responses which could be explained how mums themselves were treated as children. Full story

Scientists used to think that the immune system of the baby in the womb can successfully dispose of any offender that passes through the placenta – but the latest discoveries seem to be refuting that belief. There are 17 existing cases of mothers and their babies sharing the same kind of cancer, namely melanoma and leukemia, and the question of why it should have happened this way isn’t answered properly yet. Full story

Indulging in liquorice-rich diet on the part of the expectant mom can influence the fetus, negatively shaping his intelligence and behavior in future life, as the new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology informs. The research showed that mothers who liked to take much liquorice with their meals gave birth to children who displayed impaired cognitive functions in terms of memory and spatial awareness. Full story

A recent study reports that life expectancy is rising all over the world, and these days children born in the countries with a high level of civilization may well be expected to live to be a hundred! Researches conducted in Germany and Denmark reveal that in a number of countries life expectancy grew beyond scientists’ estimations. Full story

A series of researches has led Polish scientists to sad conclusions that air pollution levels directly impact fetus growth. For instance, even small increase in air pollution levels (like the difference between the lake air and the busy street air) will reduce the weight of newly born by 5-7 percent below normal. Full story

American government has become concerned over revised statistic about the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders. According to the new data, one in 91 children suffers from autism. In response, experts urge efforts to provide autists with lifelong support. Full story

Women who smoke during pregnancy, increase the risk of asthma, heart conditions and respiratory diseases in their babies. A new study could now help to explain why this happens. Maternal smoking imposes health risks not only on the mother but also on her baby, and the findings show this may affect both the child’s health later in life and the health of succeeding generations, according to the authors of study. Full story

More and more women are postponing pregnancy or wanting fewer babies. The recession has hit at much more than people’s wallets. According to Dr. Laura Lindberg from the Guttmacher Institute, women, especially those struggling financially, are trying more than ever to avoid getting pregnant. And many of them can’t even afford to buy their contraceptives. Lindberg and her colleagues interviewed about 1,000 sexually active women aged between 18 and 39 years old with their annual income less than $75,000. Full story

If an expectant mom takes antidepressants during first three months of pregnancy, her baby may be born with heart defect, with the risk increasing by 80 per cent. If she takes more than one antidepressant, the risk quadruples. The so called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are usually prescribed to those suffering from depression. The most recognizable of those is Prozac. Full story

New fetal heart monitor can help to save the lives of fetuses in complicated pregnancies. The report about this device was published in International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation. In cases of complicated pregnancies that result in premature birth, miscarriage, fetal growth cessation and stillbirth, problems do not usually happen suddenly but develop over a certain period of time. Regular ultrasound monitoring of fetal growth can help identify some problems, but too frequent ultrasound monitoring of a mother and her fetus involves its own health risks. Full story

A recent study published in the Pediatrics magazine reports that over one-third of pictures in women's magazines portray babies sleeping in dangerous positions. Moreover, two thirds of photos show babies in dangerous sleep environments. The study was supervised by Rachel Moon and Joyner - SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) researchers from the Children's National Medical Center, USA. Full story

It’s not a great breakthrough discovery that kids who were very active during the day fall asleep faster and get a sounder sleep, but now it has been proved scientifically. A recent study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood shows that children whose day is engaged in sedentary activities mostly need considerably more time to fall asleep when they go to bed. Full story

American toddlers watch TV two hours a day at average. Many TV programs are advertised as educational. Yet, the children under 3 years of age learn less from these programs than it might seem, unless there is an adult present to reinforce the learning. Researchers from the University of Delaware and the Temple University studied children aged from 40 to 42 months to find out whether they could learn verbs from watching TV programs. Full story

Scientists found spanking one year-olds may make them aggressive by the time they reach three years of age. Although the negative effect of spanking is rather innocent, a new study adds to pile of evidence that spanking may be detrimental to kids. According to Lisa Berlin, the study's lead author and research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, at the age of one year old, children assess parental care and develop a bond. Spanking at that period may affect the processes in negative way and increase aggressiveness of children by the time they reach two years of age. Full story

Today I was talking to my mom in Skype sitting on a sofa with the laptop on my knees, when I suddenly felt some baby movements in the belly! It’s my 16th-17th week of pregnancy. And they say, you normally feel first fetal movements in your 20th week if it’s your first pregnancy, and in the 16th-18th if it’s your second/third etc. baby. And it’s my absolutely first pregnancy! This is why I wasn’t absolutely sure, that what I had was fetal movement, but I really wanted to think so. After all, what else could it be if not the baby? Full story

Hereditary obesity can be impeded if the would-be mother undergoes obesity surgery before she becomes pregnant, an article in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism points out. According to previous research, the likeliness of overweight moms giving birth to overweight children runs pretty high, which may lead to health problems for both. Genetic factor and home environment aside, scientists concluded that a slimming surgery starts off metabolic and hormonal changes in the mother’s womb that lessen the risk of the baby having excessive weight. Full story

Parents who have babies should cut down on watching TV because it's bad for the language development in their babies, recent study says. With the TV turned on, parents talk to their babies less, so babies get worse at acquiring speaking skills. Researches studied how the TV influences the babies aged from two months to four years old and found that every extra hour of a TV turned on slashed the number of words the parents told to their babies by 500-1000. Full story

According to a recent British poll, only one out of four parents spends enough time, playing with their kids. Children and their parents said commitments and pressures of modern life get in the way of spending time together, which makes them unhappy. Only one out of four parents has enough time to play with their children, according to researchers from Play England who conducted the poll. Full story

Regular afternoon nap can help ease such problems in children as hyperactivity, anxiety and depression. Recent studies provided the evidence for that claim. The results of a study among 62 children aged 4-5 years old, presented at the annual Associated Professional Sleep Societies meeting in Seattle, pointed that a day regimen with the room for an afternoon nap is a good thing for a child’s psyche. Full story

There is one premature delivery per ten births and a minor number of women may give birth as early as after 32 weeks of pregnancy. This increases the risk that a child maybe handicapped and many very preterm babies do not survive. Researchers at the Imperial College in London say premature birth disables a baby not only because underdevelopment but also because the process, triggering premature delivery, influences the fetus directly. They are sure that prevention of premature birth can significantly lower the risk of having a handicapped baby. Full story

According to Dr. David Walsh, associate professor in midwifery at Nottingham University, England, the labor pain is beneficial for both mother's and child's health. He stresses that painkillers, such as epidural anesthesia, disturb the natural process of psychological connection between mother and child. Full story

American scientists discovered that babies suffering from colic have high concentration of specific bacteria in their intestinal microflora. Microbiologists from the University of Texas Health Science Center suggested that colic can be caused by bacterial inflammations triggered by disorders in the intestinal microflora. The study, which was reported by The Daily Telegraph, found that feces of children suffering from colic were discovered to have high concentration of bacteria from the family Klebsiella as well as substances indicating the presence of inflammatory processes in the intestines. Full story