babies

Why having an only child can be good for everyone

Parents of only children by choice are no strangers to these questions.

But evidence shows there are very few drawbacks to a one-child family, and according to one expert those passing judgement are likely envious because they have "suffered through" raising several children.

Between Canditta Natakuapa and her husband, they have 17 siblings. So deciding to have just the one child was easy for the pair who value work-life balance and giving their son "the best start in life".

Vitamin B3 supplements can prevent miscarriages, birth defects: study

Scientists from the Victor Chang Institute in Sydney investigated why some women have multiple miscarriages and why some babies are born with heart, kidney and spinal defects.

They found a major cause was a deficiency of a vital molecule known as NAD, which is important for normal development of organs.

Lead researcher Professor Sally Dunwoodie said it was the first time NAD been associated with miscarriages and birth defects.

"We have discovered a whole new cause of birth defects and a way to treat it as well," she said.

Nicknames for unborn babies

So-called noms de womb can be funny, cute and just a little on the weird side.

Phoebe Payn said as soon as people discovered she was expecting twins they started to name them.

"My dad has just started calling them Jesus and Mary because they're due at Christmas," she told Helen Shield on ABC Radio Hobart.

"B1 and B2 is popular. Which is actually quite fitting because in the scan you could see them and they were actually headbutting each other like the Bananas do.

Births to older moms rise as teen birth rate drops

The one thing missing: a baby.

Stacie Krajchir-Tom spent her 20s learning the ropes as a television producer and her 30s building her powerhouse career. By the time she reached her 40s, she was ready to start a family.

"Kris says it perfectly," Krajchir-Tom said of her husband, Kristopher Tom. "He says, 'We would have been fine without having a baby, but you wouldn't have been fine.' "

They tried for 17 years to have a baby. Now they have six

Adeboye and Ajibola Taiwo had tried for 17 years to start a family. Now, they're the parents of sextuplets -- three boys and three girls, all in good condition and absolutely adorable.

The babies were delivered by cesarean section at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond last week.

The count

For nearly two decades, Ajibola Taiwo, a native of Western Nigeria, and her husband Adeboye had tried but failed to conceive.

In November, they were elated to hear four heartbeats at their first ultrasound.

Controlled crying not the only way to teach babies to sleep, study finds

A new study, titled No Need To Make Babies Cry, challenges the view that controlled crying is the most effective approach.

Lead researcher Helen Stevens said the study followed 34 babies aged four to 11 months attending a publicly run residential family care centre in Melbourne

Families attending the centre were doing so because their babies were having trouble settling, she told ABC Radio Melbourne's Rafael Epstein.

"This is the hard end of town."

Responsive vs controlled

Cambodia breast milk: The debate over mothers selling milk

But the case has raised questions about whether these women have been exploited, or empowered, by this enterprise.

What happened in Cambodia?

For the past two years, dozens of women have been supplying their excess breast milk to a company called Ambrosia Labs.

The company has been processing and selling the milk in the US. It was marketed at US mothers who have problems producing milk for their babies.

On Tuesday, Cambodia imposed an immediate ban on breast milk exports, effectively ending the business.

Simple breath test during pregnancy could prevent asthma in babies

Hunter Medical Research Institute scientist Adam Collison who ran the study called it an "amazing finding".

"Ultimately, it means that kids will grow up without asthma who would have had it," Dr Collison said.

The breath test measured levels of nitric oxide, a marker of lung inflammation.

In the study, half the participants were prescribed medication doses based on how the women assessed their own symptoms.

The other half kept track of how they felt, but they were also assessed more precisely using the breath test.

Getting your newborn to sleep

Talk to other new parents just about anywhere and you will soon find that you are far from alone.

And with an overwhelming amount of advice available in parenting books and online, new parents can be forgiven for not knowing which way to turn.

Mary Kirk, the director of nursing and midwifery at Canberra's Queen Elizabeth II Family Centre, said new parents struggled with this issue.

Three-person IVF baby for infertile couple

The Times reports that doctors in Kiev used a method called pronuclear transfer in what is a world first.

It is not the first baby born with DNA from three parents, however.

The baby, born on 5 January, is thought to be the world's second "modern three-parent baby" - another child was created using a slightly different method in Mexico last year.