A Texas couple has given birth to quintuplets at a Phoenix hospital nationally known for its successful multiple-birth deliveries. Three girls and two boys, who are expected to debut in Houston in August, were delivered last Thursday to 33-year-old mother Ellen Howell.

Doctors at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center delivered the five babies via elective caesarean section within three minutes of each other. Though they arrived nine weeks early, each weighed about two pounds and appear healthy

Women who gorge on junk food while pregnant could raise the risk of their offspring developing irreversible health problems such as obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes in adult life, according to new research.

Researchers at the Royal Veterinary College here carried out their study involving rats but scientists believe it also applies to humans. Rats that ate a diet rich in fat, sugar and salt while pregnant were more likely to give birth to offspring that had the tendency to over-eat and had a preference for junk food when compared to the offspring of rats given regular feed

A woman who wanted to lose weight died after taking banned slimming pills that she bought over the internet.

Selena Walrond, 26, died five days after she started taking DNP, a drug that increases metabolic rate to burn calories and make bodybuilders and athletes lose weight more quickly. DNP is also used as a pesticide

Children born to mothers who are depressed during pregnancy are likely to develop more slowly than their peers, new research shows.

The study, carried out by researchers at the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol, found an increase of up to 34 per cent in the risk of poor physical and mental development in children whose mothers were depressed during pregnancy

First time parents should think twice about owning a cat if they have relatives with eczema, a skin disease, a new study finds. A gene mutation and exposure to cats at birth may increase a child's risk of developing eczema during their first year, researchers from the UK and Denmark say.

Other than environmental causes, eczema runs in families and is linked to functional faults in the gene that produces filaggrin (FLG), a protective protein in the skin. Having the mutant FLG gene increased the risk of eczema in a baby's first year twofold. Adding exposure to a cat quadrupled that risk, researchers say