Department of Women's and Children's Health

The research program investigates sexual and reproductive health in young adults who have undergone treatment for cancer and evaluates the effect of a self-help web-based intervention on sexual problems and fertility-related distress.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have followed children who have sought emergency care for wheezing during their first years of life and found specific biomarkers that can predict the need for asthma medication several years later. The study is published in the prestigious European Respiratory Journal.

Four researchers are awarded Karolinska Institutet’s Grand Silver Medal 2019. They are given the medal for their great contributions to support KI’s activities.

Most women will sustain some injury to the genital area when giving birth; however, for some of them the problems become permanent. Helena Lindgren is researching the role of the midwife and whether better methods could reduce the risk of vaginal tearing.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences have investigated the effects of testosterone supplementation in young athletically active women in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial. The results, which are published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, show that there is a causal relationship between elevated male sex hormone levels and increased aerobic capacity in young women. There was also an increase in muscle mass but not muscle strength.

Children who have received radiotherapy for a brain tumour can develop cognitive problems later in life. In their studies on mice, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now shown that the drug lithium can help to reverse the damage caused long after it has occurred. The study is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry and the researchers are now planning to test the treatment in clinical trials.

Cellular electron microscopy has been a key technique for understanding the cell’s core elements and mechanisms since the 1950s. Electron microscopic methods have laid the foundation for a number of Nobel Prizes and have given us much of the basic understanding of human cells’ overall structure, physiology and mechanisms—basically the foundation of all modern medicine.

Pregnant women with eating disorders should undergo extended pregnancy screenings considering their increased risk of complications. That is the conclusion from a study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. The researchers were, for example, able to show that children to mothers with eating disorders had an increased risk of premature birth and being born with a small head circumference

A large randomized controlled study with 197 participants conducted at Karolinska Institutet compared a mindfulness course for pregnant women with a course in Lamaze childbirthing. The study showed a significant reduction in stress, depression, and an increase in well-being among women, who initially had an increased risk of depression and stress during and after pregnancy.