Seventeen years ago we reported the public health success of reduced lead exposure of mothers in Glasgow, achieved between 1977 and 1980 by increasing the pH of the water supply from 6.3 to 9.0 with lime to reduce plumbosolvency.A further reduction in plumbosolvency has now been made by addition of orthophosphate to the water supply. We report here on striking changes in maternal blood lead con...

We report that the DNA methylation profile of a child's neonatal whole blood can be significantly influenced by his or her mother's neonatal blood lead levels (BLL). We recruited 35 mother-infant pairs in Detroit and measured the whole blood lead (Pb) levels and DNA methylation levels at over 450,000 loci from current blood and neonatal blood from both the mother and the child. We found that mo...

background epilepsy is a chronic disease that affects the behavior and cognitive performance of children. in many cases, the emotional impacts of epilepsy on the family are neglected. besides the emotional distress, recurrent seizures may lead to irreversible effects on family members, especially parents. objectives this study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of anxiety, stress and depressive d...

This paper reports on the prevalence of lead poisoning in children between 1 and 5 years of age living in a marginal area to the north of Mexico City and also includes an evaluation of sources of exposure to this metal in the same area. The results show that 67.5% of the children studied have blood lead (PbB) levels > or = 10 micrograms/100 ml. Twenty-one percent of these children (1987) had Pb...

A copy of BabyCheck was sent to 497 mothers shortly after the birth of their baby. Six months later they were sent a questionnaire asking about their use of and attitudes to, BabyCheck. Questionnaires were returned by 323 (65%) mothers; 215 (67%) of them reported reading BabyCheck, the majority found it easy to understand (74%) and agreed with the advice (67%). Eighty-four (26%) of the mothers ...

General illiteracy, superstitions, and a lack of dietary education are major problems in India. Specifically, mothers' beliefs about infant and child feeding may lead to the malnutrition of many infants and children in India. Mothers sometimes unnecessarily restrict the provision of food to their children during illness. The authors investigated the prevalent maternal beliefs in Kutumba, Aur...

Lead has been shown to exert toxic effects during early development. In these in vivo and ex vivo experiments, the effect of lead on the immune system of the developing embryo was assessed. Nine-week-old female Fischer 344 rats were exposed to lead acetate (0, 100, 250, and 500 ppm lead) in their drinking water during breeding and pregnancy (exposure was discontinued at parturition). Offspring ...

BACKGROUND At both ends of the female reproductive span, the risk of reproductive problems is increased. We hypothesize that this is partly explained by inadequate maturation of oocytes ('pre-ovulatory overripeness'). As this phenomenon has been shown to lead to gonadal anomalies in the offspring of animals, we tested the prediction that daughters of older and very young mothers more often suff...

We examined infant sleeping arrangements and cultural values of Japanese mothers in 2008 and 2009. Based on Greenfield's theory of social change and human development, we predicted that social change in Japan over the last decades (higher economic and education level, urbanization, complex technology, more women in the work force) would lead to a decline in mother-infant co-sleeping, compared w...