CORK University Maternity Hospital is playing a leading role in an international study on developing tests that can identify pregnant women at risk of serious pregnancy complications.

WOMEN who wear a large bra size are much more likely to develop diabetes than women with an A cup, experts said yesterday.

IDENTICAL twin baby boys Ryan and Dylan Kershaw are alive today thanks to doctors who performed Ireland’s first-ever surgery within the womb.

ALMOST 50,000 babies born in eight maternity hospitals in Ireland every year are to benefit from a research programme that aims to reduce infant sickness and mortality before and soon after birth.

The case for a national set of guidelines for prenatal screening, which would vastly increase the detection rate for congenital defects, is convincingly made in the Irish Examiner by one of the leading experts in the field.

DEFECTS in unborn babies are not always detected because there are not enough expertly-trained personnel to perform ultrasounds, an expert in foetal abnormalities has warned.

ALMOST 30% of all babies born in Ireland are to unmarried, single women, a study of births at the National Maternity Hospital has found.