…We will look to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for a concentrated attack on the unsolved health problems of children and of mother-infant relationships. This legislation will encourage imaginative research into the complex processes of human development from conception to old age…For the first time, we will have an institute to promote studies directed at the entire life process rather than toward specific diseases or illnesses. -John F. Kennedy, October 17, 1962

On November 14, 1963, members of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development (NACHHD) Council met for the first time, marking the initiation of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) into the family of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Check out the NICHD 40th Anniversary Scientific Symposium and other activities related to the NICHD's 40th anniversary!

Created by Congress four decades ago, the NICHD was initially founded to investigate broad aspects of human development as a means to understanding developmental disabilities, including mental retardation, as well as events that occurred during pregnancy.

Forty years later, the NICHD's mission encompasses all stages of human development, from preconception to adulthood, and addresses topics related to the health of children, adults, families, communities, and populations. Research supported and conducted by the NICHD has helped to illuminate the unique health needs of these groups.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable. Since the Institute was founded:

• Infant death rates have dropped more than 70 percent, with much of this decline resulting from NICHD-sponsored research;
• Survival rates for respiratory distress syndrome have gone from 5 percent in the 1960s, to 95 percent today, due to advances in respirator technologies and the availability of replacement lung surfactant, resulting from the research efforts of the NICHD and other Institutes;
• The rate of sudden infant death syndrome has dropped nearly 50 percent, since the NICHD-led Back to Sleep education campaign to reduce the risk of SIDS began in 1994;
• Transmission of HIV from infected mother to fetus and infant has dropped from 25 percent to just 2 percent, as a result of NICHD's efforts in collaboration with other agencies and organizations;
• The incidence of Haemophilus Influenzae B (Hib), once one of the leading causes of mental retardation, has dropped from more than 40 cases per 100,000 children under age five in 1988, before NICHD researchers developed a vaccine for Hib, to fewer than five cases per 100,000 children under five today;
• Congenital hypothyroidism, once responsible for many cases of mental retardation, no longer has an impact on cognitive development because of screening techniques used to detect the condition in all newborns and allow treatment to prevent the effects of the condition;
• Phenylketonuria, a disorder that also caused mental retardation in many individuals, has been successfully eliminated as a factor in cognitive development through newborn screening and dietary therapy;
• Infertility that at one time kept couples from having babies of their own can often be treated and reversed;
• Sound, scientific information about the safety and effectiveness of different contraceptive methods for women and men is now available; and
• Social, physical, and behavioral treatments for people with mental, developmental, and physical disabilities are now possible.

As the NICHD celebrates its many accomplishments and successes of the past 40 years, it does so with both eyes toward the future, understanding that much important research and advances are yet to come.