Breastfeeding is fundamental for child health. Changes in the duration of breastfeeding are compared for three population-based cohorts of children born in 1982, 1993 and 2004 in the city of Pelotas, Southern Brazil. Samples of the 1982 and 1993 children and all of the children from the 2004 cohort study were sought at home when they were aged around 12 months. Both the duration of breastfeedin...

A reference table of weight-for-height by week of pregnancy has been devised on theoretical grounds, based on the premises that the average increment of weight during pregnancy is 20% of the prepregnant weight and that almost all the increment takes place linearly during the 2nd and 3rd trimesters of pregnancy. The table was tested with retrospective clinic and hospital data. The results show a...

Hyperglycemia is a common problem in newborns undergoing intensive care, especially extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. There is a lack of consensus with regard to various aspects of management of neonatal hyperglycemia including definition, optimal management strategy as well as short and long term implications. We reviewed the current evidence in this regard. Recent studies suggest tha...

The acceleration or secular changes are long-term systematic changes across a broad spectrum of anthropological variables in successive generations of the population living in the same territory. The phenomenon can be seen in the size of newborns in the period of childhood and early youth, but also at the population level. The research used the data from the book of protocols, from the Departam...

BACKGROUND South Asian babies born in developed countries are generally lighter than babies from other ethnic groups born in the same country. While the mean birth weight of Caucasian babies in the Netherlands has increased the past decades, it is unknown if the mean birth weight of South Asian babies born in the Netherlands has increased or if the prevalence of low birth weight (LBW) or small-...

Birth weight is a reliable index of intra-uterine growth and a major factor determining child survival, future physical growth and mental development1. Babies born with low birth weight (LBW) have poorer chance of survival and healthy growth and development than babies born with normal weight2. These babies experience greater mental, physical and neurological handicaps later in life3. The birth...

CONTEXT The extent to which young women's risk of adolescent pregnancy is associated with having a mother who was a teenage parent, a sister who was a teenage parent or both is not known. METHODS A sample of 127 Latina and black adolescent females completed in-depth surveys at three time points between 1994 and 2000. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine whether socioeconomic fact...