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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a notoriously heterogeneous, common reproductive disorder associated with many coexisting conditions, including hyperandrogenemia, obesity, insulin resistance and other signs of metabolic dysfunction. PCOS is often diagnosed in the context of anovulatory infertility. However, more recent research disclosed an association of PCOS with increased chances for pregnancy complications, adverse perinatal outcomes and suboptimal long-term health of children born to women with PCOS. This chapter provides an overview of current literature concerning obstetrical complications in women with PCOS, especially increased risk for gestational diabetes (OR 2.7–2.9), hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (including preeclampsia, OR 1.9–4.2) and preterm birth (OR 1.5–2.2). In addition, information regarding children’s outcomes is provided, including birth weight, cardiovascular health and neurodevelopmental health. Finally, pathological pathways including biomarker data in pregnancy and placenta morphology are discussed.
At 1.5- and five-year follow-ups after the Spitak earthquake, there was a significant dose–response relation between earthquake exposure and severity of PTSD and depression. The more severely exposed Spitak group had higher PTSD and depression scores than the less severely exposed group from Gumri. However, at twenty-five years, this relation had dissipated. PTSD severity of the Spitak group that had experienced comparatively fewer post-earthquake adversities (lack of heat, electricity, food, medicine, housing, transportation) and post-earthquake traumatic experiences (e.g., fights, accidents) was comparable to that of the Gumri group; while depression severity of the Gumri group, which had been significantly lower than the Spitak group at baseline, was higher at follow-up. The detrimental impact of adversities was greater for depression than for PTSD.
Risk factors for PTSD and depression at twenty-five years included adversities, baseline PTSD and separation anxiety severity, loss of home, and chronic medical illnesses. Social support by family and friends emerged as a protective factor. Compared with those who lost one parent and controls, orphans were at greater risk for clinical depression.
Although there was a decrease in PTSD rates from baseline to twenty-five years post-earthquake (48% to 22%), earthquake-related PTSD remained a significant public health problem. Alleviation of adversities, improving the social ecology, and monitoring chronic medical illnesses should be considered essential components of disaster recovery programs.
To identify determinants of egg consumption in infants and young children ages 6-23.9 months in Ethiopia
Design and Setting:
Data used were from the cross-sectional baseline survey of an egg campaign in Ethiopia implemented by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
Participants:
Children aged 6-23.9 months (n=453) were sampled. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, economic resources, caregiver’s behavior, child health and feeding practices, and egg consumption in the last seven days were collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Multivariable ordinal logistic regression was used to examine the association between explanatory variables and egg consumption in the last seven days.
Results:
About half of children (53.4%) did not consume eggs in the last seven days. The odds of children consuming eggs were 4.33 (p < 0.002) times higher when their caregivers had some college education compared to no education. Wealth was positively (OR, 1.13, p = 0.029) and household food insecurity was negatively (OR, 0.96, p = 0.117) associated with child egg consumption. Purchasing eggs (OR, 9.73, p < 0.001) and caregiver’s positive behavioral determinants (OR, 1.37, p=0.005) were associated with child egg consumption. The associations of sociodemographic characteristics and economic resources with egg consumption provide evidence of partial mediation through caregiver behavior and child health.
Conclusions:
About half of children aged 6-23.9 months consumed eggs. Availability of eggs in households, mainly through purchase, was strongly associated with egg consumption. Education of caregivers and household heads and economic resources were associated with egg consumption and may operate through caregiver behavior.
Research has shown the importance of vocabulary development in relation to other parts of language development, e.g. grammar and reading development. Cross-linguistic research has shown similar as well as dissimilar tendencies regarding content in different languages. This study examines, for the first time, the characteristics of Faroese children’s early productive vocabulary utilizing a Faroese adaptation of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI). The study participants were 415 children aged 8 to 20 months. The results provide information on the composition and characteristics of lexical development in Faroese children and demonstrate that nouns are dominant among first words, as are onomatopoetic words and words describing family relationships. Faroese children are comparable to children learning other languages with respect to rate of acquisition and composition of words, with a somewhat higher share of words describing family members as stable words in the emerging language.
Iodine, through the thyroid hormones, is required for the development of the auditory cortex and cochlea (the sensory organ for hearing). Deafness is a well-documented feature of endemic cretinism resulting from severe iodine deficiency. However, the range of effects of suboptimal iodine intake during auditory development on the hearing ability of children is less clear. We therefore aimed to systematically review the evidence for the association between iodine exposure (i.e., intake/status/supplementation) during development (i.e., pregnancy and/or childhood) and hearing outcomes in children. We searched PubMed and Embase and identified 330 studies, of which 13 were included in this review. Only three of the 13 studies were of low risk of bias or of good quality, this therefore limited our ability to draw firm conclusions. Nine of the studies (69%) were in children (one RCT, two non-RCT interventions and six cross-sectional studies) and four (31%) were in pregnant women (one RCT, one cohort study and two case reports). The RCT of iodine supplementation in mildly iodine-deficient pregnant women found no effect on offspring hearing thresholds. However, hearing was a secondary outcome of the trial and not all women were from an iodine-deficient area. Iodine supplementation of severely iodine-deficient children (in both non-RCT interventions) resulted in improved hearing thresholds. Five of six cross-sectional studies (83%) found that higher iodine status in children was associated with better hearing. The current evidence base for the association between iodine status and hearing outcomes is limited and further good-quality research on this topic is needed.
Proton pump inhibitors are widely used agents in the treatment of dyspepsia, and their effects on ventricular repolarisation through ion channels are well-known. Our aim is to evaluate the change in ventricular repolarisation parameters on electrocardiogram before and after proton pump inhibitor treatment. This study included 69 patients who had symptoms such as burning stomach pain, bloating, nausea, and heartburn for at least 3 months. Electrolyte levels of the patients were measured before and after treatment, and 12-lead electrocardiograms were taken at the initial and 1st month follow-up visit. Heart rate, QT interval, corrected QT (QTc), QT dispersion (QTd), QTc dispersion (QTcd), Tp-e measurements, and Tp-e/QT ratio were calculated and compared. Thirty-nine of the patients were girls, 30 were boys, and the mean age was 13.16 ± 3.02 years. Electrolyte levels of the patients before and after treatment were within the normal range. There was no statistically significant difference in the QTc, the Tp-e duration, or the Tp-e/QT ratio of the patients before and after treatment. We did not find a significant prolongation in the QTc duration or any other ventricular repolarisation parameters after proton pump inhibitor treatment in children with dyspepsia. We did not observe ventricular arrhythmia in our patients during follow-up. However, different results might be obtained with a larger sample and a longer follow-up period. These patients may have an increased risk of developing ventricular arrhythmias. Therefore, precaution should be taken when using drugs that prolong the QT period, and follow-up with serial electrocardiograms should be planned.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Elmhirsts saw reforming education as a key to a more harmonious future – a view that that was widely shared. Their vision of an ideal education system was one that promoted learners’ freedom and holistic fulfilment, that was integrated with its rural surroundings and that extended from the cradle to the grave. This chapter looks at Dorothy and Leonard’s efforts to realise this vision, setting them within the context of the flourishing interwar progressive education movement and of wider efforts to promote rural reform, life-long learning and international harmony. Ideologically plastic, unfettered by economic necessity and well-connected, Dartington was the only progressive educational scheme begun in interwar Britain as part of a larger social experiment. It offers a singular demonstration of the cross-fertilisation of progressive education with other holistically-minded programmes that sought to re-think the laissez-faire liberal philosophy of the previous century.
The aim of this study was to assess the changes in the prevalence of overweight, obesity and high adiposity in children and adolescents from Krakow (Poland), between the years 2010 and 2020. Two cross-sectional series of anthropometric measurements were carried out in 2010 and 2020. Analysed characteristics included: body height and weight, BMI (Body Mass Index), body adiposity (%BF). The subjects were categorised according to their BMI (underweight, normal weight, overweight, obesity), as well as %BF (low, normal, high body fat).The research was conducted in randomly selected primary schools in Krakow (Poland). Studied cohorts (8-15 years of age), which represented four of the traditional residential districts: Śródmieście, Podgórze, Krowodrza and Nowa Huta. Among the girls, there was a negative secular trend regarding the prevalence of underweight and obesity. On the other hand, there also was a positive trend concerning the prevalence of overweight and low and high body fat. In boys, there was a negative secular trend regarding the prevalence of underweight and low adiposity. There was also a generally positive secular trend regarding the prevalence of overweight, obesity as well as high adiposity in boys. The findings of this study are particularly significant because detailed knowledge of the prevalence of overweight/obesity in childhood and adolescence is crucial for the future health of entire populations. Further studies should also take into account the levels of physical fitness and activity of the examined population.
This chapter explores how human children soften the abusive edge of carceral spaces. Prisons, immigration detention centres, and zoos and aquaria are institutions that attract sustained public scrutiny from prisoner rights, migrant rights, anti-racist, and animal rights movements. Among other things, critics contest the messaging that these institutions and their proponents use to assure the public of the need for confinement and the ethical acceptability of the conditions captive animals and humans experience. These discourses, depending on the specific institution, highlight the larger public “law and order” interests of safety and border control, but also “progressive” interests of rehabilitation, conservation, and education. In highlighting these latter “progressive” interests, carceral institutions seek to humanize themselves and their work to bolster their social credibility. This “humane-washing” occurs through long-standing rationales about rehabilitation for offenders in the prison context, and more recent rationales about the conservation of nature and conservation education in the zoo and aquarium context. It also, I will argue, occurs through a specific type of marshaling of the human child. I apply a multispecies lens to consider how the real and imagined human child in the zoo and aquaria context, and narratives about what is in the best interests of human children in the immigration and prison context, figure into characterizing such carceral institutions as legally and socially legitimate spaces.
Considering the influence of body’s growth and development on thyroid volume (TVOL), whether five existed corrected methods could be applied to correct TVOL remains unclear, in terms of Chinese children’s increased growth and development trends. This study aimed to compare the applicability of five correction methods: Body Surface Area corrected Volume (BSAV), Body Mass Indicator corrected Volume (BMIV), Weight and Height corrected Volume Indicator (WHVI), Height corrected Volume Indicator 1 (HVI1) and Height corrected Volume Indicator 2 (HVI2) and to establish the reference values for correction methods. The data of Iodine Nutrition and Thyroid Function Survey were used to analyse the differences in TVOL between normal and abnormal thyroid function children. Data of National Iodine Deficiency Disorders Survey were used to compare five correction methods and to establish their reference values. The median urinary iodine concentrations of children surveyed were 256·1 μg/l in 2009 and 192·6 μg/l in 2019. No significant difference was found in TVOL and thyroid goitre rate between children with normal and abnormal thyroid function. In the determination of goitre, HVI1, HVI2, BSAV and BMIV all showed high agreement with TVOL, while the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of WHVI was relatively low for children aged 8 (AUC = 0·8993) and 9 (AUC = 0·8866) years. Most differences of TVOL between light and heavy weight, short and tall height children can be eliminated by BSAV. BSAV was the best corrected method in this research. Reference values were established for corrected TVOL in Chinese children aged 8–10 years by sex.
This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of FPPs, including home availability of different types of foods and drinks, parental modelling of fruit intake, permissiveness, and the use of food as a reward, in the relationship between parental education and dietary intake in European children.
Design:
Single mediation analyses were conducted to explore whether FPPs explain associations between parents' educational level and children’s dietary intake measured by a parent-reported food frequency questionnaire.
Setting:
6 European countries.
Participants:
Parent–child dyads (n = 6705, 50.7% girls, 88.8% mothers) from the Feel4Diabetes-study.
Results:
Children aged 8.15 ± 0.96 years were included. Parental education was associated with children’s higher intake of water, fruits, and vegetables and lower intake of sugar-rich foods and savoury snacks. All FPPs explained the associations between parental education and dietary intake to a greater or lesser extent. Specifically, home availability of soft drinks explained 59.3% of the association between parental education and sugar-rich food intake. Home availability of fruits and vegetables were the strongest mediators in the association between parental education and fruit and vegetable consumption (77.3% and 51.5%, respectively). Regarding savoury snacks, home availability of salty snacks and soft drinks were the strongest mediators (27.6% and 20.8%, respectively).
Conclusions:
FPPs mediate the associations between parental education and children’s dietary intake. This study highlights the importance of addressing FPPs in future interventions targeting low-educated populations.
Young children often make pragmatic assumptions when learning new words. For example, they assume that a speaker who uses different words intends to refer to different things – the so-called principle of contrast. We used a standard disambiguation task to explore whether children’s assumptions about contrast depend on how much words differ. Three- to 6-year-olds heard pairs of words that differed in terms of the number, position, and types of phonological contrasts. Results indicate that children were less likely to disambiguate words differing by one phoneme than words differing by two or more phonemes, particularly when those one-phoneme differences were located at the beginning or end of the words (as in fim/vim). Overall, the findings suggest that children’s pragmatic assumptions about two contrasting words depend not only on if words differ, but also on how they differ.
In economics the labour force comes out of nowhere. Under capitalism children are still produced at home. Under slavery they were reared for profit. Children were reared collectively in kibbutzim and boarding schools. In industrialising Britain child labour paid for itself. Affluent societies rely on communal education. Even private schools are not-for-profit. The slogan of school choice was invented for racial segregation. Its appeal is social separation. For politicians and wealthy backers the charter school/free school/academy model is ideological money-laundering and opportunities for enrichment. Despite three decades of effort school choice has failed. Universities derive their economic support from student fees financed by government loans. This encourages expensive facilities, at the expense of students and staff. Student loans have become a lifelong burden exacerbating inequality. Bringing children to maturity relies on family altruism and public education. Other methods have failed.
To quantify PUFA-associated improvement in linear growth among children aged 6–10 years.
Design:
Serum fatty acids (FA), including essential FA (EFA) (linoleic acid (LA) and α-linolenic acid (ALA)) were quantified at baseline using GC-MS technology. FA totals by class (n-3, n-6, n-9, PUFA and SFA) and FA ratios were calculated. Height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) relative to WHO population reference values were calculated longitudinally at baseline, 6 and 12 months. Linear regression models estimated PUFA, HIV status and their interaction-associated standardised mean difference (SMD) and 95 % CI in HAZ over 12 months.
Setting:
Community controls and children connected to community health centre in Kampala, Uganda, were enrolled.
Participants:
Children perinatally HIV-infected (CPHIV, n 82), or HIV-exposed but uninfected (CHEU, n 76) and community controls (n 78).
Results:
Relative to highest FA levels, low SFA (SMD = 0·31, 95 % CI: 0·03, 0·60), low Mead acid (SMD = 0·38, 95 % CI: 0·02, 0·74), low total n-9 (SMD = 0·44, 95 % CI: 0·08, 0·80) and low triene-to-tetraene ratio (SMD = 0·42, 95 % CI: 0·07, 0·77) predicted superior growth over 12 months. Conversely, low LA (SMD = -0·47, 95 % CI: −0·82, −0·12) and low total PUFA (sum of total n-3, total n-6 and Mead acid) (SMD = -0·33 to −0·39, 95 % CI: −0·71, −0·01) predicted growth deficit over 12 months follow-up, regardless of HIV status.
Conclusion:
Low n-3 FA (ALA, EPA and n-3 index) predicted growth deficits among community controls. EFA sufficiency may improve stature in school-aged children regardless of HIV status. Evaluating efficacy of diets low in total SFA, sufficient in EFA and enriched in n-3 FA for improving child growth is warranted.
Chapter 10 shows how what began with philosophy’s rendering God superfluous ended in a war against the God of Abraham. Here we have the singularity of the Holocaust, which lies in a singular assault on the Jewish people as the perennial witnesses to that God the God of Abraham. Drawing on the testimony of the Holocaust diaries, written within the whirlwind of the assault on God, this chapter demonstrates that this defining feature of the Holocaust can be seen, for example, in the Nazis’ use of the holy calendar in the execution of their actions, in the prohibitions against prayer and Sabbath observance, in the destruction of synagogues and Hebrew Bibles, and in the targeting of children, elders, and mothers. What the diaries reveal about the essence of Holocaust that the historians cannot, it is argued, is this: The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of not just of the bodies but of the souls of the Jews as a means of annihilating the God of the Jews. It is unprecedented and unparalleled.
A young child presented with syncope attacks. Late-onset post-operative complete atrioventricular block and Torsades de Pointes were diagnosed. She was treated with surgical epicardial pacemaker implantation. This report is the description of Torsades de Pointes due to late-onset post-operative complete atrioventricular block followed by R on T phenomenon in a child.
Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) is associated with overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. Although existing research confirms the significance of economic and social factors as determinants of SSB intake, comparative studies on political factors and cross-national analyses are lacking. Research indicates that including women in the process of political decision-making promotes healthcare and child protection. This study examined how women’s parliamentary representation influences children’s and adolescents’ SSB intake compared with adults.
Design:
The study used cross-national food and beverage intake data from the Global Dietary Database. The outcome measurement was SSB consumption (g/day) for different population groups. We modelled SSB intake as a function of age groups, women’s parliamentary representation at the national level (the independent variable), regime types (the contextual factor) and import tariffs on SSB (the mediator) using country and time-fixed effects regression models.
Setting:
One-hundred eighty-five countries across three waves from 2005 to 2015.
Participants:
Different population groups.
Results:
The impact of female representation on reducing SSB consumption is more prevalent in children and adolescents than in adults. Furthermore, the effect of women’s parliamentary representation on SSB consumption among children and adolescents is conditional on a country’s democratic status. Finally, the marginal effect decreases when import tariffs on SSB are considered a link in a causal chain. No changes in adult SSB intake are statistically significant.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that the presence of women in the legislature can have a substantial impact on child and adolescent health.
This chapter examines forced encampment litigation in Kenya. Refugees living in urban areas resisting facing the prospect of relocation to a refugee camp, as well as refugees living in camps seeking permission to leave have initiated these cases. I examine how judges use human rights in the Kenyan Constitution and rights in the Refugee Convention as prisms to articulate the functions and nature of refuge. I show that Kenyan courts have understood refuge as a process as well as a human rights remedy that must allow refugees to live a liveable life in the present, have hope for the future and heal from past trauma. Judges arrive at these sophisticated understandings of refuge when they identify and reflect on irreducible aspects of refugeehood. However, in more recent cases, Kenyan judges instead focus on the uniqueness of the protection from refuge litigant. This results in conceptualising refuge as a limited commodity that, akin to welfare, must be given to those most in need or most deserving. Nevertheless, a feminist analysis indicates that in identifying the anomalous refugee, Kenyan courts have addressed protection concerns relating to gender, age and disability in a sensitive and nuanced manner.
Lockdown during the pandemic has had significant impacts on public mental health. Previous studies suggest an increase in self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents. There has been little research on the roles of stringent lockdown.
Aims
To investigate the mediating and predictive roles of lockdown policy stringency measures in self-harm and emergency psychiatric presentations.
Method
This was a retrospective cohort study. We analysed data of 2073 psychiatric emergency presentations of children and adolescents from 23 hospital catchment areas in ten countries, in March to April 2019 and 2020.
Results
Lockdown measure stringency mediated the reduction in psychiatric emergency presentations (incidence rate ratio of the natural indirect effect [IRRNIE] = 0.41, 95% CI [0.35, 0.48]) and self-harm presentations (IRRNIE = 0.49, 95% CI [0.39, 0.60]) in 2020 compared with 2019. Self-harm presentations among male and looked after children were likely to increase in parallel with lockdown stringency. Self-harm presentations precipitated by social isolation increased with stringency, whereas school pressure and rows with a friend became less likely precipitants. Children from more deprived neighbourhoods were less likely to present to emergency departments when lockdown became more stringent,
Conclusions
Lockdown may produce differential effects among children and adolescents who self-harm. Development in community or remote mental health services is crucial to offset potential barriers to access to emergency psychiatric care, especially for the most deprived youths. Governments should aim to reduce unnecessary fear of help-seeking and keep lockdown as short as possible. Underlying mediation mechanisms of stringent measures and potential psychosocial inequalities warrant further research.
Focusing on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Cherie Dimaline’s The Marrow Thieves, this chapter considers the Child as a conventional figure of futurity – as elucidated by Lee Edelman, Robin Bernstein, Natalia Cecire, Rebecca Evans, and Rebekah Sheldon. What happens to this figure when race becomes explicitly a part of narratives in which children, put into perilous motion by environmental collapse, struggle to find a safe place to grow up? One possible consequence, as Dimaline’s novel illustrates, is the granting to young characters an independent existence from the meanings encoded by the Child. Unlike The Road, which centers the father’s sense of guilt on the son having to find ways to survive in an environmentally destroyed world, The Marrow Thieves centers on young adult characters who struggle to hold together a non-familial community amid an environmental crisis. They think explicitly about how stories can bind them together in the pursuit of common survival even as they can tear individuals apart because of the horrors they recall, and in doing so imagines a future that comes into being in part as a result of the exercise of this agency.