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Biomedical subjects

R W Hayes

Publications and source records attributed to R W Hayes.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1985

A test of a common assumption regarding the use of antenatal training during labour.

The nature and purpose of antenatal classes are reviewed briefly, together with the common assumption that women given antenatal training to cope with their labour pains do all in fact make use of the breathing and postural techniques which have been taught in the classes when they come to labour itself. This assumption was tested by obtaining reports of the use of such techniques from sixty primiparous mothers after their labours. The results showed that the majority of these women did use their coping techniques at the onset of contractions, but as labour progressed toward delivery fewer and fewer mothers did so, less than a third practising any kind of coping techniques by the time they were in the second stage of labour. Of the more than two thirds remaining, a very substantial number could be accounted for by the mothers who had epidural analgesia, but, even allowing for this, more than half of the 'non-epidural' mothers failed to make use of their postural and breathing techniques during the second stage of labour. These findings suggest that it should no longer be assumed that all women taught to cope with labour pains by learning postural and breathing techniques in antenatal classes will necessarily be able to use them throughout labour itself.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1979

An oculo-cardiac hypothesis of sudden unexpected death in infants.

The oculo-cardiac hypothesis presented here draws attention to the evidence for links between Sudden Unexpected Death in Infants (SUD) - known in America as the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also as "cot death" or "crib death" - and the vagally mediated reflex slowing of the heart beat following pressure on the eye. A brief review is made of epidemiologic findings on SUD, including the fact that around 9000 infant fatalities per year are attributed to SUD in the U.S.A. alone. Evidence for excessive vagal discharge as a likely factor in SUD is discussed. The nature of the oculo-cardiac reflex discovered by Aschner is described, with particular attention to those factors which appear to make specific categories of sleeping infant more vulnerable to cardiac arrest in circumstances where this reflex is elicited. The factors include prematurity and an existing electrical instability of the heart. Regarding the manner in which such an oculo-cardiac reflex might in practice be set off, it is suggested that this could occur if the infant slept in such a position that the weight of the head could press the eye against any irregular surface which might exist on the mattress, or any object which was resting on the mattress. Evidence is cited for SUD infants being in fact more likely than controls to sleep in such a position. Children with exophthalmos would be more at risk in this respect. It is stressed that all this evidence is already published, but has not previously been drawn together to show the likelihood of a link between Sudden Dath and the oculo-cardiac reflex.

Heart↗
PubMed1978

Hospitalized chronic alcoholic patients without field-dependent performance in the rod-and-frame test.

Hospitalized male chronic alcoholics (n = 60) fully employed and with no history of malnutrition were compared with matched nonalcoholic controls (n = 50) on the Rod-and-Frame Test (RFT). The RFT scores of the alcoholics were not significantly worse than those of the controls. This is in marked contrast to earlier reports of RFT field dependence in unemployed, indigent alcoholics and supports Burdick's findings with the Embedded Figures Test.

Adult↗