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Maternal Condition (maternal + condition)
Selected AbstractsMaternal and paternal condition effects on offspring phenotype in Telostylinus angusticollis (Diptera: Neriidae)JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2007R. BONDURIANSKY Abstract It is widely recognized that maternal phenotype can have important effects on offspring, but paternal phenotype is generally assumed to have no influence in animals lacking paternal care. Nonetheless, selection may favour the transfer of environmentally acquired condition to offspring from both parents. Using a split-brood, cross-generational laboratory design, we manipulated a key environmental determinant of condition , larval diet quality , of parents and their offspring in the fly Telostylinus angusticollis, in which there is no evidence of paternal provisioning. Parental diet did not affect offspring survival, but high-condition mothers produced larger eggs, and their offspring developed more rapidly when on a poor larval diet. Maternal condition had no effect on adult body size of offspring. By contrast, large, high-condition fathers produced larger offspring, and follow-up assays showed that this paternal effect can be sufficient to increase mating success of male offspring and fecundity of female offspring. Our findings suggest that both mothers and fathers transfer their condition to offspring, but with effects on different offspring traits. Moreover, our results suggest that paternal effects can be important even in species lacking conventional forms of paternal care. In such species, the transfer of paternal condition to offspring could contribute to indirect selection on female mate preferences. [source] Maternal Mortality Associated with Eclampsia and Severe Preeclampsia of PregnancyJOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY RESEARCH (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2000Dr. H. Sawhney Abstract Objective: To analyse factors associated with maternal mortality in eclampsia and preeclampsia. Method: Retrospective analysis of 69 maternal deaths due to (eclampsia-61; severe preeclampsia-8) was carried out during a period of 17 years (1982,1998). Maternal condition on admission, associated complications and principal cause of death was analysed in each case. Results: Mean time interval between hospitalization and maternal death was 49.56 + 62.01 hrs (1,240 hrs). Twenty (28.9%) women died undelivered. Twenty-three (37.7%) women were in grade IV coma and 52.4% of eclampsia patients had recurrent convulsions (> 10) prior to admission. Associated complications in form of hemorrhage, cerebrovascular accidents, acute renal failure, jaundice, aspiration pneumonia and pulmonary oedema were 30.4, 31.8, 34.8, 18.8, 17.8, and 5.8%, respectively. Maternal mortality in eclampsia was significantly low in time period B (4.1%) when magnesium sulphate was used as an anticonvulsant. Conclusions: Maternal condition on admission and associated complications are the major determinant of maternal outcome. Use of magnesium sulphate is associated with significant reduction of maternal mortality. [source] Timing of foetal growth spurts can explain sex ratio variation in polygynous mammalsECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 1 2000M.C. Forchhammer The prediction from sex ratio theory that natural selection on sexually dimorphic mammals should favour an excess of male offspring only when mothers are in good condition, has been tested extensively but with little consistency in results. Although recent studies have shown that environmental variations may cause some of the discrepancy, there have also been reports of contrasting sex ratios under similar environmental settings. Here it is suggested that variation in timing of environmental stress and sex-specific differences in foetal growth pattern in relation to maternal condition, may explain such seeming contradictions in sex ratio variation of polygynous mammals. [source] Testing hypotheses about fecundity, body size and maternal condition in fishesFISH AND FISHERIES, Issue 2 2004Marten A. Koops Abstract Recent research suggests that maternal condition positively influences the number of eggs spawned in fishes. These studies commonly choose a priori to use body length rather than weight as an explanatory variable of offspring production, even though weight is usually the better predictor of fecundity. We are concerned that consistent exclusion of body weight as a predictor of egg production inflates the variance in fecundity attributable to maternal condition. By analysing data on three populations of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua, Gadidae) and 10 populations of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis, Salmonidae), we illustrate the need for a statistically defensible method of model selection to distinguish the effects of maternal condition on egg production from the effects of body size alone. Forward stepwise regression and null model analyses reveal how length-based regressions can significantly over-estimate correlations between condition and fecundity, leading us to conclude that the effect of condition on egg productivity may not be as ubiquitous or as biologically important as previously thought. Our work underscores the need for greater statistical clarity in analyses of the effects of maternal condition on reproductive productivity in fishes. [source] Social biology of rodentsINTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2007Jerry O. WOLFF Abstract Herein, I summarize some basic components of rodent social biology. The material in this paper is summarized and condensed from a recent book "Rodent Societies: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective" edited by J. O. Wolff and P. W. Sherman (2007). I describe the four basic spacing patterns and illustrate how female territoriality is a function of offspring defense and male mating tactics are a function of female defensibility. The vulnerability of young to infanticide shapes female spacing and mating behavior. Food does not appear to be a defensible resource for rodents, except for those species that larder hoard nonperishable items such as seeds. Philopatry and the formation of kin groups result in genetic sub-structuring of the population, which in turn affects effective population size and genetic diversity. Dispersal is male biased and typically involves emigration from the maternal site to avoid female relatives and to seek unrelated mates. Scent marking is a major form of communication and is used in reproductive competition and to assess prospective mates, but it is also eavesdropped by predators to locate prey. Females do not appear to alter the sex ratio of litters in response to maternal condition but among arvicoline rodents daughters appear to be favored in spring and sons in autumn. Rodents are relatively monomorphic; however, females tend to be larger than males in the smallest species and smaller in the larger species. Predation risk results from an interaction among foraging time and vulnerability and in turn affects behavioral and life history characteristics. [source] Maternal effort and joey growth in koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY, Issue 4 2006J. R. Tobey Abstract The extent to which sex-biased maternal investment characterizes mammals is controversial, with less information available for evaluating patterns of maternal effort in marsupials than in placentals. Koalas Phascolarctos cinereus are size-dimorphic animals with a lengthy period of dependency and they reside in mating systems that might favour sex-biased maternal investment. We examined 18 years of data recorded from koalas living at the San Diego Zoo in order to examine how joey development and maternal condition might be connected. Koalas are pregnant for only 1 month, but joey emergence from the pouch does not occur until 32 weeks of age. Neither maternal condition nor age affected sex ratio at joey emergence, and both sexes had the same survivorship prospects. Koala dams transport and nurse joeys for close to 1 year, at which time the two sexes are size dimorphic. Given the poor-quality diet of koalas, combined with maternal transport of infants who are at least 25% of maternal mass, we suggest that infant rearing poses high energetic costs on koala females. We suggest that ecological and energetic constraints have moulded koala maternal strategies such that females maximize allocation of resources to offspring, regardless of sex, in order to increase prospects for joey survivorship. [source] Rhesus macaque milk: Magnitude, sources, and consequences of individual variation over lactationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Katherine Hinde Abstract Lactation represents the greatest postnatal energetic expenditure for mammalian mothers, and a mother's ability to sustain the costs of lactation is influenced by her physical condition. Mothers in good condition may produce infants who weigh more, grow faster, and are more likely to survive than the infants of mothers in poor condition. These effects may be partially mediated through the quantity and quality of milk that mothers produce during lactation. However, we know relatively little about the relationships between maternal condition, milk composition, milk yield, and infant outcomes. Here, we present the first systematic investigation of the magnitude, sources, and consequences of individual variation in milk for an Old World monkey. Rhesus macaques produce dilute milk typical of the primate order, but there was substantial variation among mothers in the composition and amount of milk they produced and thus in the milk energy available to infants. Relative milk yield value (MYV), the grams of milk obtained by mammary evacuation after 3.5,4 h of maternal-infant separation, increased with maternal parity and was positively associated with infant weight. Both milk gross energy (GE) and MYV increased during lactation as infants aged. There was, however, a trade-off; those mothers with greater increases in GE had smaller increases in MYV, and their infants grew more slowly. These results from a well-fed captive population demonstrate that differences between mothers can have important implications for milk synthesis and infant outcome. Am J Phys Anthropol 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Double child burial from sunghir (Russia): Pathology and inferences for upper paleolithic funerary practicesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2004Vincenzo Formicola Abstract The double child burial from Sunghir (Russia) is a spectacular Mid Upper Palaeolithic funerary example dated to about 24,000 BP. A boy (Sunghir 2) and a girl (Sunghir 3), about 12,13 and 9,10 years old, respectively, were buried at the same time, head to head, covered by red ocher and ornamented with extraordinarily rich grave goods. Examination of the two skeletons reveals that the Sunghir 3 femora are short and exhibit marked antero-posterior bowing. The two femora do not show any asymmetry in the degree of shortening and bowing. Bowing affects the whole diaphysis and shows a regularly incurved profile, with the highest point at midshaft. Pathology is confined to the femora, and no other part of this well-preserved specimen shows abnormality. The isolated nature of the Sunghir 3 anomalies points to cases reported in the medical literature under the label of "congenital bowing of long bones" (CBLB). These are a group of rare conditions exhibiting localized, sometimes bilateral, bowing and shortening which are nonspecific and may result from different causes, including abnormalities of the primary cartilaginous anlage (i.e., the aggregation of cells representing the first trace of an organ). Localized ossification disturbances, possibly linked to a diabetic maternal condition, might explain the shortening and the coincidence of maximum midshaft curvature with the position of the primary ossification center, as well as the lack of involvement of other skeletal parts. This scenario, rather than other possibilities (early bilateral midshaft fracture, acute plastic bowing deformities, or faulty fetal posture), provides the most likely explanation for the Sunghir 3 femoral deformities. The intriguing combination of a pathological condition apparent since birth with a spectacular burial of unusually positioned young individuals of different sexes recalls significant aspects of the triple burial from the contemporary site of Dolní V,stonice (Moravia), evoking a patterned relationship between physical abnormality and extraordinary Upper Paleolithic funerary behavior. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] High-fiber diet promotes weight loss and affects maternal behavior in vervet monkeysAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Lynn A. Fairbanks Abstract The dramatic increase in obesity in western societies has shifted the emphasis in nutrition research from the problems of undernutrition to the adverse consequences of being overweight. As with humans, Old World monkeys are at increased risk for type II diabetes and other chronic diseases when they gain excessive weight. To prevent overweight and obesity, promote animal health, and provide a more natural level of fiber in the diet, the standard commercial monkey chow diet at a vervet monkey breeding colony was changed to a higher fiber formulation in 2004. The new diet was also higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate and energy density than the standard diet. Because maternal behavior is known to be sensitive to differences in resource availability, data on weight and mother,infant interactions for 147 mothers with 279 infants born from 2000 through 2006 were assessed for effects of the diet change. The results showed that, even though food was provided ad libitum, the mean body weight of breeding females was 10% lower after the transition to the high-fiber diet. Behaviorally, mothers on the high-fiber diet were significantly more rejecting to their infants, and their infants had to play a greater role in maintaining ventral contact in the first few months of their lives. The effects of the diet change on maternal rejection were significantly related to the mother's body weight, with lower-weight mothers scoring higher in maternal rejection. These results demonstrate that maternal behavior is responsive to changes in maternal condition, and that beneficial changes in the diet may have unintended consequences on behavior. Am. J. Primatol. 72:234,241, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Milk composition varies in relation to the presence and abundance of Balantidium coli in the mother in captive rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 6 2007Katherine Hinde Abstract Primate infants require extensive maternal investment, and lactation is the most expensive aspect of this investment. However, the relationship between maternal condition and milk composition has been largely uninvestigated in primates. To better understand this relationship, I collected mid-lactation milk samples from 46 captive multiparous rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) at the Caribbean Primate Research Center, Sabana Seca Field Station, Puerto Rico. The maternal variables assessed were age, weight, weight for crown,rump length (CRL), and presence of parasites. Additionally the analysis included infant age, weight, and sex. Protein concentration in milk showed little interindividual variation, whereas fat had a high variance. Mothers without the lower intestinal parasite Balantidium coli had a significantly higher fat concentration in milk than mothers with B. coli, but other parasite species (Trichuris trichiura and Strongyloides fulleborni) were not associated with milk fat concentration. Females with younger infants had a higher fat concentration in their milk than mothers with older infants; however, the association between B. coli and milk fat remained significant after controlling for infant age. These results, obtained from a well fed captive population, indicate that even small differences among mothers are associated with milk composition. Am. J. Primatol. 69:625,634, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Liss, Inc. [source] ,Mother's Little Helper': The Crisis of Psychoanalysis and the Miltown ResolutionGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 2 2003Jonathan M. Metzl This paper examines the discourse surrounding the release in 1955 of Miltown, America's first psychotropic wonder drug. According to many histories of psychiatry, Miltown heralded the arrival of a new paradigm in treating psychiatric patients , as a drug that operated on a neurochemical level, it was argued to replace a psychoanalytic approach with its focus on the mother-child relation. Between 1955 and 1960, articles about pharmaceutical miracle cures for mental illnesses filled mass-circulation news magazines and top fashion magazines. Through analysis of these representations, this article shows how the newly discovered pills came to be associated with existing concerns about conditions problematically referred to as ,maternal conditions,' ranging from a woman's frigidity, to a bride's uncertainty, to a wife's infidelity. Using these representations, the paper demonstrates how in American popular culture, psychoanalytic notions of motherhood prevalent in the 1950s shaped early understandings and uses of psychotropic drugs. [source] Applying DALY to assessing national health insurance performance: the relationship between the national health insurance expenditures and the burden of disease measures in IranINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2005Mehdi Russel Abstract The Iranian government has considered using DALYs as an indicator to prioritize health service expenditures to reduce the burden of disease for the public. A cross-sectional study was designed to compare several measures of the burden of disease with the actual amounts of national health insurance (NHI) expenditures, in one province of Iran (Semnan) for a period of 2 months (September 2000 and February 2001). Furthermore, on the basis of the research findings, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to stakeholders at local and national levels to explore their ideas about the gap between the expenditures of the diseases group and their burden. A semi-structured interview was conducted to elicit participants' views on the research findings. The results of this study have revealed that, currently, there is no strong relation between the NHI expenditures and DALY (r,=,0.41, p,=,0.09), but that there are stronger relationships between the amounts of NHI reimbursements with YLL (r,=,0.52, p,<,0.05), mortality (r,=,0.67, p,<,0.01) and hospital days (r,=,0.90, p,<,0.01). Comparing each group of disorders' DALY with the resources allocated to them (cost per DALY) it was shown that diabetes mellitus, musculoskeletal diseases, maternal conditions, sense organ disorders received considerably generous funding; and, perinatal conditions, congenital abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies were relatively under-funded. The qualitative research results showed that the majority of respondents agreed that the differences presently existing between disorders' burden and NHI expenditures cannot be justified; and, further, that reducing the overall burden of disease must be one of the most important objectives for the NHI. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Regulation of Mineral and Trace Elements in Human Milk: Exogenous and Endogenous FactorsNUTRITION REVIEWS, Issue 8 2000Bo Lönnerdal Ph.D. Breast-fed infants are dependent on an adequate supply of minerals and trace elements for normal growth and development. For most of these elements, the mammary gland appears to have developed mechanisms to regulate their concentrations, even when the maternal diet varies considerably or maternal conditions are affected by different challenges. For some elements, however, there appears to be little or no such regulation. Increased knowledge about these mechanisms, or their absence, and to what extent they may compensate for adverse maternal conditions, including poor nutrition, will help identify infants and women at risk for deficiencies of these nutrients. [source] Strong association between birth month and reproductive performance of Vietnamese womenAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Susanne Huber Epidemiological studies on premodern and modern Western societies indicate that birth season may influence female reproduction. Nothing is known, however, about this effect in developing economies. Many of the latter are characterised by tropical climates with a rainy season associated with lower food availability and a greater prevalence of infectious diseases. We therefore predict that an association between birth month and reproductive output, if it exists, should be related to the rainy season. To test this prediction, we analysed census data of Vietnam obtained from IPUMS-International (Vietnam 1999 Population and Housing Census). Based on 493,853 women born between 1950 and 1977 and thus aged 22 to 49 years, we found that the time series of mean offspring count per month of birth has a highly significant period of 12 months (power = 46.871, P < 0.00001). Our results further indicate that the 12-month periodic signal has a maximum in July and a minimum in January. Accordingly, the peak corresponds to birth during the rainy season, the low if the third pregnancy month concurs with the rainy season. The month of birth is therefore clearly associated with the later reproductive performance of Vietnamese women, strongly supporting the assumption that environmental and maternal conditions during early development exert long-term effects on reproductive functioning. Provided the rainy season adversely affects developmental processes due to inadequate food and/or high infection risk, the association reported here points to a critical period of reproductive development during early pregnancy. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Lactational programming? mother's milk energy predicts infant behavior and temperament in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 6 2010Katie Hinde Abstract There are many aspects of "mothering" that may provide information to the mammalian infant about environmental conditions during critical periods of development. One essential element of mothering involves the quantity and quality of milk that mothers provide for their infants, but little is known about the consequences of variation in milk production. Mother's milk may affect infant behavior by contributing to brain development and to the development of behavioral dispositions. Here we present the first evidence for any mammal that natural variation in available milk energy (AME) from the mother is associated with later variation in infant behavior and temperament in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta, N=59). In the early postnatal period, heavier mothers with more reproductive experience produced greater AME, which is the product of milk energy density (kcal/g) and milk yield (g). Moreover, infants whose mothers produced greater AME in the early postnatal period showed higher activity levels and greater confidence in a stressful setting later in infancy. Our results suggest that the milk energy available soon after birth may be a nutritional cue that calibrates the infant's behavior to environmental or maternal conditions. These data provide new insight into potential mechanisms for the development of behavior and temperament and illuminate new directions for investigating maternal effects, nutritional programming, and developmental plasticity. Am. J. Primatol. 72:522,529, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Calprotectin levels in meconiumACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 4 2003N Laforgia Aim: To evaluate the effect of gender, gestational age, birthweight, mode of delivery, 5,-Apgar score and maternal conditions on calprotectin concentrations in meconium. Methods: Calprotectin was measured in 131 neonates, in the first passed meconium. Results: Calprotectin levels (mean ± SD) resulted in 145.2 ± 78.5 mg kg,1 meconium, significantly correlated with birthweight (r=,0.333; p < 0.001), gestational age (r =,0.206; p = 0.018) and 5,-Apgar score (r= -0.243, p= 0.035). The estimated regression model was: calprotectin levels (mg kg,1) = 269.58,41.54 weight (kg); r = 0.383, p < 0.001. No differences were found in relation to gender, mode of delivery and maternal conditions. Conclusion: Calprotectin is already present in the first passed meconium, with higher levels in preterm and low birthweight neonates, as well as in neonates with some degree of perinatal asphyxia, as indicated by the negative correlation with 5,-Apgar score. These findings are probably secondary to both the immaturity of the intestinal mucosa and its hypoxic-ischaemic damage. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||