To help close this knowledge gap, Lewis, along with placenta researcher Michelle Desforges at the University of Manchester, and bioinformatician Michele Darrow at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, ...

The placenta plays a central role in fetal development by regulating nutrient transfer, hormonal signaling, and immune interactions, thereby shaping lifelong health outcomes. Evidence from ...

AS WE emerged into the world as newborns, each of us lost something important: a body part that had provided us with oxygen and nutrients, removed waste products and kept pathogens at bay. What became ...

The placenta contracts independently of the rest of the uterine wall, as seen in around 60% of 36 MRI-scanned healthy ...

A new study has given insights into placental contractions during pregnancy, using MRI imaging to show how placental and uterine contractions can be ...

The placenta and the hormones it produces may have played a crucial role in the evolution of the human brain, while also leading to the behavioral traits that have made human societies able to thrive ...

When Mana Parast was a medical resident in 2003, she had an experience that would change the course of her entire career: her first fetal autopsy. The autopsy, which pushed Parast to pursue perinatal ...

During pregnancy, the placenta secretes hormones that increase insulin resistance, which may cause gestational diabetes (GD). Left untreated, diabetes can damage the placenta. GD begins in the ...