Washington, Sept 19 : A new research has revealed that women, who have their baby before age 20, are more prone to chronic diseases and death during their middle age.

The study, which also states that having a child as a young single woman lowers economic status in midlife, appeared in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

The number of West Nile Virus cases has been climbing up another time, but the rate of increase is slow. This indicates aerial spraying last month had the desired result killing a big part of the disease carrying mosquitoes.

Presently, there are 115 people in Kern County with the disease. That’s up from 107 a week ago. But an increase of eight cases is low as against six or seven weeks ago, when the number augmented by 30% each week.

Washington, Sep 19: Bumper pads meant to prevent babies from bumping or trapping their heads against the hard bars of a crib, can actually increase the risk of accidental death or injury to an infant, a study says.

According to paediatric researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the hazards of using crib bumper pads outweigh their benefits.

Washington, September 19: A new study on mice by an Emory-led team of scientists has found an important way by which chronic viral infections escape the immune response.

Chronic infections are able to suppress the immune T-cell response over time, whereby it poses one of the biggest challenges to treating infectious diseases and developing preventive vaccines.

Washington, Sept 19: Researchers at Stanford University have developed a method that might help give the results of pre-natal tests within just a few hours instead of two weeks, thus making the early detection of Down syndrome and other birth defects that involve an abnormal number of chromosomes possible.

Scientists in California reported the advancement and the report has been published in Oct. 1, 2007 issue of ACS’ journal Analytical Chemistry.