Psychosocial Factors Associated with Patterns of Smoking Surrounding Pregnancy in Fragile Families

Although research has documented factors associated with maternal smoking, we need a more in-depth understanding of the risk factors associated with changes in smoking behaviors during the postpartum period. We investigate smoking patterns during pregnancy and 1 year postpartum as a function of relevant psychosocial factors. We use data on 3,522 postpartum mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to analyze the predictors of smoking among mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy but smoked at 1 year postpartum, mothers who smoked both during pregnancy and postpartum, and mothers who did not smoke during either period. Our covariates are grouped into four categories of risk factors for smoking: socioeconomic status, health care, life course and health, and partner and social support. Postpartum mothers in our sample were more likely to smoke throughout or after their pregnancies if they had only a high school education or less, had a household income three or more times below the poverty line, had public or no health insurance, breastfed for less than 5 months, were not married to the infant’s father, if the infant’s father currently smoked, and if they attended religious services less than once a week. Mental health problems were consistently associated with an increased risk of constant and postpartum smoking relative to non-smoking. Psychosocial factors play a role in postpartum smoking, but they have a stronger effect in predicting smoking that persists throughout pregnancy and the first year postpartum

Auditory brainstem response in tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii)

Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) elicited by click and tonal stimuli were recorded from the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii), a marsupial mammal. The morphology, threshold, amplitude, and latency of ABRs recorded in the tammar wallaby are similar to those of other marsupials and mammals used in auditory research, including humans. Thresholds determined by an algorithm employing cross-correlation and by conventional visual detection methods were comparable. The findings from this study indicate that tammar wallaby is a suitable model for auditory research and that algorithms employing cross-correlation are useful for detection of the ABR waveform

Steady-state evoked-potentials (SSEP) in infants: modulation frequency effects [Abstract]

The University of Melbourne experience shows that steady-state evoked-potentials are a sensitive indicator of hearing loss in children and adults (Rance et al., 1996). Cognizant of the effect of stimulus rate upon ABRs in early development (Lasky, 1987, Cone-Wesson et al., 1995), we investigated the effect of modulation frequency (MF) upon the detectability of the SSEP recorded from full-term (FT) neonates and those with a history of prematurity (PM). The influence of gender was also evaluated, as it has been shown to be a significant variable in ABR results (Sininger et al., 1995, Eldredge and Salamy, 1996). Ten male and 9 female FT infants were tested on the second day post partum (range 1-5 days).8-12 Jun