Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Bacteria in mother's mouth risk to fetus

|
|
 
  
Published: July 17, 2009 at 1:28 PM
Advertisement

CLEVELAND, July 17 (UPI) -- Researchers in Cleveland say they're studying ways to stop common bacteria found in a mother's mouth from harming an unborn child.

Case Western Reserve University is funding the study with a five-year, $1.85 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the university said in a release Friday.

The research is to be headed by Yiping Han, an associate professor of dentistry who's written extensively about how harmless bacteria in a mother's mouth can turn deadly when it reaches an unborn child.

"It's an upstream approach to go back to where the whole process begins and stop it from starting its destruction," Han said of her research.

Bacteria from the mouth can move through the placenta, rapidly multiplying in the immune-free environment that protects the fetus from being rejected by the mother's body, Han said. The bacterial growth inflames the placenta, which can trigger premature birth and fetal death, she said.

Han said her research also could have implications for preventing periodontal disease, which has been linked to arthritis, diabetes and heart disease.

Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Oscar nominations 2012 High Fashion in Paris 2011: The year in space
Additional Science News Stories
1 of 15
Rose McGowan at The Heart Truth's Red Dress Fall 2012 Collections at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week In New York
View Caption
fark
When articles invoking the Holocaust and urging creative destruction in Iran appear on the same...
Remember that guy who wants to adopt his 42-year-old girlfriend? His kids have asked a judge to...
Here's a phrase that could end the college dating scene as we know it: "untreatable, drug-resistant,...
One legged cocaine dealer runs away from police by hopping. Really, Florida? I mean, really?
The judge found Alan Berger voluntarily signed up for the beer-drinking game of beer pong, and couldn't...
The "mystery" behind the deaths of the Iranian nuclear scientists has been solved. Guess who? Go...