Bacteria and fungi infection in amniotic fluid may cause a significant number of premature births in infants, new study has found.

Using new technology, Stanford researchers in California reported on Monday that they looked at fluid samples from 166 women in preterm labor; 113 of the women went on to deliver premature babies. The women were patients at Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit between October 1998 and December 2002

Babies born by Caesarean section have a greater risk of developing type-1 diabetes than those who are born via normal deliveries, UK research suggests.

Researchers from Queen's University Belfast examined data from 20 published studies on children with type-1 diabetes who were born by caesarean. The results found that that babies born by caesarean had a 20 per cent higher risk of diabetes compared with babies born by natural birth. The normal risk of a baby developing type 1 diabetes is three in 1,000

A newborn infant infected with an unknown form of bacteria is in intensive care in an Alberta hospital.

The Chinook Health Region is still awaiting test results to establish the cause and type of the infections. A baby boy died, reportedly, of the same infection Friday morning after surgery

- The controversial plastic used in baby bottles, water bottles, and to line food cans, Bisphenol-A, has been deemed safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

Concern over the effects of the plastic, especially on the very young and old, have caused a bit of a backlash against products that use BPA since U.S. government scientists at the National Toxicology Program (NTP) voiced "some" concern about they synthetic material's possible effects, which they said could include accelerated female puberty, as well as having negative effects on the mammary and prostate glands

The future of an infant born of an Indian surrogate mother is uncertain as her biological parents, a Japanese couple, divorced after conception.

Abandoned by her Japanese and the Indian mother, the baby is now under her grandmother's care in a hospital in Jaipur, in western Rajasthan state