Biomedical subjects

K N Parkinson

Publications and source records attributed to K N Parkinson.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Participation of disabled children: how should it be characterised and measured?

PURPOSE: The aim of the paper is to explore the issues involved in measuring children's participation. METHOD: The concept of participation as encapsulated in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) is discussed as it applies to children. The essential components of any measure of children's participation are outlined, including participation essential for normal development and survival, leisure activities, and educational participation. Some existing instruments are briefly reviewed in terms of their coverage of the essential components and the adequacy of their approach to measurement. RESULTS: Key issues regarding the content of an adequate measure of participation include the need to consider the child's dependency on the family, and their changing abilities and autonomy as they grow older. Instruments may be most appropriate where they ask the child directly, implying use of visual as well as verbal presentation. Their focus should be on 'performance' such as whether and how often an activity is taken part in, and not incorporate degree of assistance within the measurement scaling. CONCLUSIONS: Currently available measures of children's participation all have some limitations in terms of their applicability across impairment groupings, whether the child can directly respond, and in the ICF components covered. The feasibility of developing measurement instruments of children's participation at different ages is discussed.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2006

The influence of maternal socioeconomic and emotional factors on infant weight gain and weight faltering (failure to thrive): data from a prospective birth cohort.

AIMS: To study the influence of maternal socioeconomic and emotional factors on infant weight gain and weight faltering (failure to thrive) in the first year of life. METHODS: The Gateshead Millennium Baby Study is a population birth cohort in northeast England studied prospectively from birth, via parental questionnaires and a health check aged 13 months. Data were collected on maternal education, deprivation, eating attitudes, and depression, using the Edinburgh Post Natal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 3 months. Weight gain was assessed using change in weight SD score, conditional on birth weight (Thrive Index); weight faltering was defined as conditional weight gain below the 5th centile. RESULTS: Of 923 eligible infants born at term, 774 (84%) had both weight and questionnaire data. Replicating a previous finding, both the highest and the lowest levels of deprivation were associated with weight faltering; this was independent of the type of milk feeding. No relation was found with maternal educational status. Maternal eating restraint was unrelated to weight gain. Infants of mothers with high depression symptom scores (EPDS >12) had significantly slower weight gain and increased rates of weight faltering up to 4 months (relative risk 2.5), especially if they came from deprived families, but by 12 months they were no different from the remainder of the cohort. CONCLUSIONS: In this setting, social and maternal characteristics had little influence on infants' weight gain, apart from a strong, but transient effect of postnatal depression.

Child of Impaired Parents↗

PubMed2004

Do early infant feeding patterns relate to breast-feeding continuation and weight gain? Data from a longitudinal cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the first-week feeding patterns for breast- vs bottle-fed babies, and their association with sustained breast-feeding and infant weight gain at 6 weeks. DESIGN: A longitudinal cohort study. SETTING: Feeding diaries were completed by mothers in an urban UK community shortly after birth; follow-up weight and feeding data were collected at routine health checks. SUBJECTS: Mothers of 923 full-term infants born during the recruiting period agreed to join the study. In all, 502 usable diaries were returned from 54% of the cohort. RESULTS: Breast-fed infants were fed more frequently (2.71 h between feeds) than bottle-fed infants (3.25 h between feeds) and mixed-fed infants (3.14 h between feeds) (P<0.001) in the first week of life, while duration of feeds was similar. Only exclusive breast-feeding in the first week (P<0.001) and maternal education (P=0.004) were related to continued breast-feeding at 6 weeks. Greater first-week feeding frequency (as measured by feed-to-feed interval, h) was associated with higher weight gain at 6 weeks for breast-feeders, but no analysed factors were associated with higher weight gain for bottle-feeders. CONCLUSIONS: This large-scale study of first-week feeding patterns sheds light on the important and complicated issues of breast-feeding continuation and infant weight gain, with implications for the feeding advice given to mothers. Supplementary bottle feeds were clearly associated with discontinued breast-feeding at 6 weeks. Over that period, higher weight gain was associated with more frequent feeding for breast-fed infants only. SPONSORSHIP: Henry Smith Charity, SPARKS, Child Growth Foundation.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Postnatal weight loss in term infants: what is normal and do growth charts allow for it?

BACKGROUND: Although it is a well known phenomenon, limited normative data on neonatal weight loss and subsequent gain are available, making it hard to assess individual children with prolonged weight loss. OBJECTIVE: To establish, using data from a large prospective population based cohort study, norms and limits for postnatal weight loss and its impact on current growth reference charts. METHOD: A cohort of 961 term infants were recruited at birth and followed using parental questionnaires and community nursing returns. Routine weights were collected for half the cohort at 5 days and for all at 12 days and 6 weeks. RESULTS: Less weight loss was seen than the 3-6% suggested by previous studies, but one in five infants had not regained their birth weight by 12 days. Those lightest at birth showed least weight loss. Twenty six (3%) children had more than 10% weight loss, but none showed evidence of major organic disease. Actual weights in the first fortnight are half to one centile space lower than growth charts suggest, while birthweight centiles for children born at 37 weeks were two centile spaces lower. CONCLUSIONS: Neonatal weight loss is brief, with few children remaining more than 10% below birth weight after 5 days. Growth charts are misleading in the first 2 weeks, because they make no allowance for neonatal weight loss.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2004

Why are babies weaned early? Data from a prospective population based cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The recommended age of introduction of solids food to the diet of infants (weaning) has recently been increased in the UK to 6 months, but most babies are still weaned before the age of 4 months. AIMS: To examine what predicts the age of weaning and how this relates to weight gain and morbidity using data from a population based cohort. METHODS: Parents of 923 term infants born in a defined geographical area and recruited shortly after birth were studied prospectively using postal questionnaires, weaning diaries, and routinely collected weights, of whom 707 (77%) returned data on weaning. RESULTS: The median age of first weaning solids was 3.5 months, with 21% commencing before 3 months and only 6% after 4 months of age. Infants progressed quickly to regular solids with few reported difficulties, even when weaned early. Most parents did not perceive professional advice or written materials to be a major influence. The strongest independent predictors of earlier age at weaning were rapid weight gain to age 6 weeks, lower socioeconomic status, the parents' perception that their baby was hungry, and feeding mode. Weight gain after 6 weeks was unrelated to age of weaning. Babies weaned before 3 months, compared to after 4 months, had an increased risk of diarrhoea. CONCLUSIONS: Social factors had some influence on when weaning solids were introduced, but the great majority of all infants were established on solids before the previously recommended age of 4 months, without difficulty. Earlier weaning was associated with an increased rate of minor morbidity.

Age Factors↗

PubMed2004

The diagnosis of borderline iron deficiency: results of a therapeutic trial.

BACKGROUND: Iron deficiency is common in early childhood and has been associated with developmental delay. It is not known how reliably markers of iron deficiency identify true iron deficiency, defined as a therapeutic response to oral iron. METHODS: The subjects were members of the Millennium Baby Study cohort. At age 13 months a venous blood sample was taken for mean cell volume (MCV), haemoglobin, mean cell haemoglobin (MCH), ferritin, and zinc protoporphyrin (ZPP). Children with abnormal values were offered treatment with oral iron and dietary modification, and re-sampled after 3 months. RESULTS: Samples were obtained for 462 children. All markers were moderately correlated with each other except ferritin. Treatment was offered to 147 (32%) children with at least one abnormal value, of whom 126 (86%) were re-sampled. Children with a haemoglobin or an MCH below the screening cut off, or with abnormal values for two or more of the remaining three measures, showed a large therapeutic response to iron, but isolated abnormalities of MCV, ZPP, or ferritin were not consistently associated with a response. Of the screened population 13% could be defined as iron deficient (abnormal haemoglobin or MCH, or abnormal levels of two or more of the remaining three markers), but this was not strongly associated with any dietary, demographic, or anthropometric characteristic. CONCLUSIONS: Low total or mean cell haemoglobin in isolation is a specific marker of iron deficiency, but other markers are only predictive when found in combination with other abnormal values.

Anemia, Iron-Deficiency↗

PubMed2001

Feeding behaviour in the weaning period.

Feeding behaviour in the weaning period is important theoretically and practically. The aim of the study was to develop appropriate observational codes for its description, to assess their reliability, and to examine the relationships between feeding behaviour, meal duration, and food intake. One hundred children aged 12-14 months were visited in their own homes, and two of each child's usual meals video-recorded and analysed using direct observation. Codes were developed that distinguished between the mother feeding her child directly and assisting her child's self-feeding, and between the child's behaviour when responding to being fed by the mother and when feeding themselves. All-occurrence sampling was used to record counts of these feeding acts during the meals. Two observers replicated coding of 40 randomly chosen meals to determine the reliability of these counts. Except for three codes which were used very infrequently (median counts of zero over the 200 meals), reliability was high with p > .80. There was wide variation in the extent to which individual children fed themselves during meals, with only moderate consistency from meal to meal. Food intake was uncorrelated with meal duration, but correlated with the number of bites of food taken. Adjusted for the number of bites, longer meals were associated with a lower intake. When fed by the mother the child's food intake was greater than when they fed themselves, but the duration of the meals was little affected. The coding scheme is simple to use and generally reliable, and provides a means for relating more global measures of emotional or other characteristics of mealtime behaviour to feeding behaviour and nutritional intake.

Adult↗