Maternal and Child Health Commons^™

Childhood Obesity Predicts Adult Metabolic Syndrome: The Fels Longitudinal Study, Shumei S. Sun, Ruohong Liang, Terry T-K Huang, Stephen R. Daniels, Silva Arslanian, Kiang Liu, Gilman D. Grave, Roger M. Siervogel

Publications and Research

Objectives—To determine the age of significant divergence in body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference in adults with and without the metabolic syndrome, and to provide age- and sexspecific childhood values that predict adult metabolic syndrome.

Study design—Part 1 of this study is a retrospective cohort study of 92 men and 59 women (mean age, 51 years) who had metabolic syndrome and 154 randomly selected adults matched for age and sex who did not have the syndrome. Part 2 is a study of predictive accuracy in a validation sample of 743 participants.

Results—The first appearance of differences …

Low-Income Minority Mothers’ Reports Of Infant Health Care Utilisation Compared With Medical Records, Kennan D. Murray, Ayman El-Mohandes, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Michele Kiely

Publications and Research

This study aimed to investigate mothers’ reporting of the nature, location, frequency and content of health care visits for their infants, as compared with data abstracted from the infants’ medical records. It was part of a community-based parenting intervention designed to improve preventive health care utilisation among minority mothers in Washington, DC. Mothers 18 years old with newborn infants and with poor or no prenatal care were enrolled in the study. A total of 160 mother–infant dyads completed the 12-month study. Mothers were interviewed when the infants were 4, 8 and 12 months old, and were asked to recall infant …

Health Beliefs And Parenting Attitudes Influence Breastfeeding Patterns Among Low-Income African-American Women, Phyllis W. Sharpe, Ayman A.E. El-Mohandes, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Michele Kiely, Tessa Walker

Publications and Research

OBJECTIVE: To describe breastfeeding initiation among 210 urban African-American mothers with inadequate prenatal care.

METHODS: This study is a case–control study of postpartum mothers recruited from four large urban hospitals.

RESULTS: Mothers who chose to breastfeed were more educated, employed before birth, married, and using contraception postnatally. Regression model analysis controlling for demographic differences revealed that breastfeeding was significantly associated with a higher perception of severity of illness and higher confidence in the ability of health care to prevent illness. Breastfeeding mothers were less likely to reverse parent– child roles and had a lower perception of hassle from their infant’s …

Prostitution And Hiv Infection: Women, Aids, & Activism, Polly Thistlethwaite, Zoe Leonard

Publications and Research

This "Prostitution and HIV Infection" chapter of the ACT UP/NY Women & AIDS Book Group's Women, AIDS & Activism reflects the scientific, feminist, gay, lesbian, HIV-community work that informed ACT UP/NY's activism and analysis on women and HIV infection up to 1990. Book Group members: Marion Banzhaf, Cynthia Chris, Kim Christensen, Alexis Danzig, Risa Denenberg, Zoe Leonard, Deb Levine, Samuel Lurie, Monica Pearl, Catherine Gund, Polly Thistlethwaite, Judith Walker, and Brigitte Weil. Additional members of the original Women and AIDS Handbook Group included Jamie Bauer, Heidi Dorow, Maria Maggenti, Ellen Neipris, Ann Northrop, Sydney Pokorney, Karen Ramspacher, Maxine Wolfe, and …

Caring Choices: Decision-Making About Treatment For Catastrophically Ill Newborns, Betty Wolder Levin

Publications and Research

Decision making for catastrophically ill newborns has recently emerged as a social issue. Advances in biomedical technology and practice, and changes in other economic, social and political factors have led to controversy about norms to guide treatment choice. While much has been written on how such decisions should be made, there has been little social science research on how such decisions are actually made.

The purpose of this dissertation is to elucidate the way that clinicians think about treatment decisions for catastrophically ill newborns. The focus is on decision making with respect to the limitation of treatment in those situations …