(Press-News.org) Los Angeles, (February 22, 2012)—While medical professionals have long known breastfeeding positively impacts infant and maternal health, few effective tools are available to measure breastfeeding practices nationally. According to a new study, one preexisting government-funded program is a potential wealth of accurate data about the breastfeeding practices of low-income mothers. This study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Lactation (published by SAGE).
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a USDA-funded program that provides services to over 50% of all infants in the US, collects information about breastfeeding practices from postpartum mothers when they receive their food package vouchers. Women receive different foods, depending on whether they breast or formula feed, but until now, no one knew if the feeding information WIC collected when issuing food packages reflected how the infant was really being fed.
Researchers Shannon E. Whaley, Maria Koleilat, and Lu Jiang conducted a telephone-based survey of over 2000 WIC participants to verify that the data documented in WIC administrative records was accurate. They found that the survey data they collected agreed almost perfectly with WIC records and stated that such information should be used in nationwide breastfeeding surveillance and monitoring systems.
"Assessing breastfeeding rates among the low-income population, a group often shown to display the lowest rates of breastfeeding, can be particularly challenging given high rates of mobility and lower rates of having a medical home where routine care is provided to mothers and their children," wrote the authors.
The authors claimed that the new information provided by sources such as the WIC program can remedy this challenge and is critical in order for future researchers to better understand the feeding practices of low-income women and children.
Whaley, Koleilat, and Jiang wrote, "Timely and reliable data sources about breastfeeding are needed not only to document trends in breastfeeding behavior across the country, but to identify the impact of breastfeeding on modifiable adverse health outcomes for children and their mothers."
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The article, "WIC Infant Food Package Issuance Data are a Valid Measure of Infant Feeding Practices," in Journal of Human Lactation, is available free for a limited time at: http://jhl.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/02/17/0890334412436720.full.pdf+html
Journal of Human Lactation (JHL) is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal publishing original research, commentaries relating to human lactation and breastfeeding behavior, case reports relevant to the practicing lactation consultant and other health professionals who assist lactating mothers or their breastfeeding infants, debate on research methods for breastfeeding and lactation studies, and discussions of the business aspects of lactation consulting.
Impact Factor: 1.329
Ranked: 54 out of 109 in Pediatrics, 50 out of 77 in Obstetrics & Gynecology and 21 out of 89 in Nursing
Source: 2010 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2011)
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and WashingtonDC. www.sagepublications.com
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NEW YORK (Feb. 22, 2012) -- Oncologists have known that in order for cancer cells to spread, they must transform themselves so they can detach from a tumor and spread to a distant organ. Now, scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have revealed critical steps in what happens next -- how these cells reverse the process, morphing back into classical cancer that can now grow into a new tumor.
Their findings, now published online and in a upcoming issue of Cancer Research and funded through a National Cancer Institute grant to the Cornell Center on the Microenvironment ...
Fallout from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power facility in Japan was measured in minimal amounts in precipitation in the United States in about 20 percent of 167 sites sampled in a nationwide study released today. The U.S. Geological Survey led the study as part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP). Levels measured were similar to measurements made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the days and weeks immediately following the March 2011 incidents, which were determined to be well below any level of public health concern.
Many NADP ...
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The first anniversary is approaching of the March, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated Fukushima, Japan, and later this year debris from that event should begin to wash up on U.S. shores – and one question many have asked is whether that will pose a radiation risk.
The simple answer is, no.
Nuclear radiation health experts from Oregon State University who have researched this issue following the meltdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant say the minor amounts of deposition on the debris field scattered in the ocean will have long since ...
MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University researcher and former park ranger is helping people take a new view of the prairie and see it as more than a seemingly empty landscape.
Tyra Olstad, doctoral student in geography, North Tonawanda, N.Y., is studying the rich -- although sometimes hidden -- beauty of Kansas landscapes. It's an abstract, yet important, field of study that may help develop new ways to promote and celebrate Kansas tourism, history and geography.
"I became interested in the pejoratives that people layer on prairie landscapes," Olstad said. "I wanted ...
CHICAGO, February 22, 2012 – The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) today announced major changes in how the nation's medical residency programs will be accredited in the years ahead, putting in place an outcomes-based evaluation system where the doctors of tomorrow will be measured for their competency in performing the essential tasks necessary for clinical practice in the 21st century.
Summarized in a paper published in the February 22, 2012 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the ACGME's next accreditation system for graduate ...
Tampa, FL (Feb. 22, 2012) -- A nicotinic drug approved for smoking cessation significantly improved the walking ability of patients suffering from an inherited form of ataxia, reports a new clinical study led by University of South Florida researchers.
The randomized controlled clinical trial investigated the effectiveness of varenicline (Chantix®) in treating spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, or SCA3. The findings were published online earlier this month in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neuroscience.
Lead author Dr. Theresa Zesiewicz and colleagues ...
Following their recent string of promotions this festive season, Sky Poker is now offering players membership to the Sky Poker Priority Club, aimed to benefit and reward those who regularly play poker online with Sky. To join, players simply need to accrue over 10,000 Sky Poker Points each month by entering online games and tournaments. The membership status of each player is determined Sky Poker according to the previous months' play.
Some of the fantastic advantages available to Sky Poker Priority Club members are:
Direct Buy-ins to Sky Poker Tour events
If playing ...
As scientists warn that the Earth is on the brink of a period of mass extinctions, they are struggling to identify ecosystem responses to environmental change. But to truly understand these responses, more information is needed about how the Earth's staggering diversity of species originated.
Curiously, a vexing modeling mystery has stymied research on this topic: mathematical models have told us that complex ecosystems, such as jungles, deserts and coral reefs, in which species coexist and interact with another, cannot persist--even though they obviously do.
But now, ...
Despite brutal cold and lingering darkness, life in the frigid waters off Alaska does not grind to a halt in the winter as scientists previously suspected. According to preliminary results from a National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded research cruise, microscopic creatures at the base of the Arctic food chain are not dormant as expected.
After working aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy for six weeks in waters where winds sometimes topped 70 knots, wind chills fell to -40 degrees and samples often had to be hustled safely inside before seawater froze to the ...
Troy, N.Y. – A new study led by nanotechnology and biotechnology experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is providing important details on how proteins in our bodies interact with nanomaterials. In their new study, published in the Feb. 2 online edition of the journal Nano Letters, the researchers developed a new tool to determine the orientation of proteins on different nanostructures. The discovery is a key step in the effort to control the orientation, structure, and function of proteins in the body using nanomaterials.
"To date, very little is known about how ...
