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Nothing is more chilling to parents of newborns than the possibility of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID), which accounts for about 3,400 newborn deaths annually in the United States. And while campaigns promoting safe sleeping practices have contributed to fewer of these deaths overall, a study published this week in JAMA Network Open found that SUID rates have increased since 2020 for Black babies while they’ve stayed relatively stable for White infants. (Holohan, 9/25)

It’s no secret raising a kid is expensive. Countless diapers, 18 years worth of food, childcare and, for some, the cost of college tuition. But before all that even starts, there’s one big bill many parents will be forced to pay: the hospital bill. Even routine deliveries can cost families a shocking sum, depending on their insurance coverage. When things go wrong, the costs mount even higher. The cost of having a baby in the U.S. is so high, it has become a subject of global fascination, with videos of people recounting their itemized bills going viral. (Martichoux, 9/26)

In February, when 40-year-old Nicole Torres visited her OB-GYN at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to discuss why the recent nine-week ultrasound of her pregnancy had shown no heartbeat, she felt relieved to at least have clear next steps. Her doctor had given her a referral for an infertility specialist. Torres was hopeful about the timing, too. She had learned about a new law requiring insurance companies to cover infertility diagnoses and treatment, specifically in vitro fertilization (IVF). Considered by fertility doctors to be the most effective medical intervention — in which eggs are surgically removed and combined with sperm inside a lab to create embryos that are transferred to the uterus — IVF is also the most expensive. (Richards, 9/27)

The North Carolina state budget passed in July allocates more than $10.7 million to pregnancy resource centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, continuing a pattern of state funding that has grown substantially over the past decade. (Crumpler, 9/28)

Should pregnant people in St. Louis eat more pawpaws? If a recent trial study in Ecuador is any indication, perhaps so. Researchers at Washington University observed that when pregnant women in Ecuador consumed healthy proteins, fruits and vegetables and less processed foods, there was significant brain development in fetuses. (Wimbley, 9/25)

Children whose mothers were vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) during pregnancy saw significantly reduced immunity response to their own early childhood vaccination, although childhood vaccine boosters at age 4 normalized immunity levels, according to a small observational cohort study. (Rudd, 9/25)

Nicolas Rivron, a biologist now based in Austria, spent close to a decade trying to build a model mouse embryo in the lab from scratch. After years of incremental progress and occasional false leads, he and his research team landed on their approach: They would carefully defrost 500,000 embryonic mouse stem cells, mix them with stem cells that could form the placenta, then separate the resulting blend into tiny containers. Eventually, those tiny cells began to attach to one another in the dish, creating aggregates the width of a fine strand of hair. The researchers implanted the cells into the wombs of female mice, where they took hold and began to grow. (Klotz, 9/25)