Billion Dollar Study to Follow Kids from Womb to Age 21

When asked what they want their kids to grow up to be, "healthy" is frequently the reply from new or expectant parents. Well now there's a way that families can help make this a reality for generations of children to come. Underway since last January, the National Children's Study is the largest and most innovative study of children's health that has ever been done. Though there are only several hundred participants so far, the goal is to recruit a total of 100,000 pregnant women throughout the U.S., and monitor their babies until age 21.

"We anticipate increasing enrollment in the National Children's Study in the months ahead," Alan Guttmacher, M.D., Acting Director of NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Children's Study's supervising agency, tells ParentDish. "Study scientists are testing a number of methods to increase participation, including direct referral from health care providers, increased outreach through community groups and events, and broader recruitment over wider geographic areas."

Through this landmark initiative, projected to cost about $6.7 billion, researchers will try to understand the role of environment in child health and disease, with the promise of results that will enrich the future with invaluable medical knowledge, helping generations of American children lead healthier lives. To this end, researchers will be collecting and analyzing a wide variety of biological and environmental specimens, including blood, urine, toenail clippings and hair from pregnant women, babies and fathers; dust from women's bedsheets; tap water; soil the children play in; and particles on carpets and baseboards. In addition, the placenta will be collected at birth, as will the baby's first bowel movement.

The samples will be sent to laboratories, prepared for long-term storage, and analyzed for chemicals, metals, genes and infections. In addition, there will be a battery of questions about everything from possible drug use to depression, looking at psychosocial, demographic, neighborhood, and other factors. All study data will be collected via clinic screenings, home visits, and phone interviews, and all the information gathered will remain confidential.

In an effort to obtain results that are as unbiased as possible, recruiters will draw from a diverse sample of women in 105 counties across the U.S.. "It will be a representation of the nation's children, which means that it will include children from all social economic groups, and children from all races and ethnic groups," according to Yvonne T. Maddox, Ph.D., Deputy DIrector, National Institute of Child Health, in an informational video on the study's Web site.

Researchers will examine the interaction between environmental and genetic factors which cause or contribute to health development and behavior problems, including asthma, infant mortality, obesity, diabetes, autism, learning disabilities, cardiovascular disease, even risk-taking behaviors and injuries, as well as a number of diseases that have emerged in the past 30-40 years. With results of a new study announced just this week which found that chronic health conditions among U.S. children more than doubled from 1994 to 2006, news of the National Children's Study seems especially timely.

So how do parents feel about this study, and the possibility of putting themselves, their children, and their immediate families under a microscope for the next 21 years? Alejandra, a 30-year-old Colombian-born waitress from Queens, told The New York Times that her husband initially didn't want her to participate in the study, but ultimately she decided that participating would "help the next generation."

In an interview with ParentDish, Alexandra Zissu, author of "The Complete Organic Pregnancy," discussed the possibility that the study might influence participating parents to make different choices while raising their children. "Even flawed, it's a great idea, and the fact that people are drawing any kind of attention to environmental factors in any community is very important. And if it makes parents act differently, that's great."

Related: Unhealthy Kids' Snacks