Cigarette smoking by pregnant women with particular reference to their past and subsequent breast feeding behaviour

Summary: 1,790 postpartum women were asked about their smoking habits and baby feeding practices and about a number of other attitudes and physical attributes. For those variables not concerned with baby feeding, our findings generally support previous research; for example, smokers in comparison to non‐smokers tended to have more emotional problems, more reproductive failures and babies with lower birth‐weights. For baby feeding, we found that smokers tended to (i) have little prior knowledge of breast feeding, (ii) favour bottle feeding, (iii) have been fed by bottle by their mothers, and (iv) wean earlier than non‐smokers or ex‐smokers. In fact, non‐smokers as a group were similar to breast feeders as a group, and smokers like bottle feeders for over 20 characteristics. These similarities were mostly the result of features of smoking and baby feeding behaviour being found in a common personality type; for example, use of tobacco and choice of bottle feeding are probably attributes of nervous, insecure mothers. But some similarities were the result of the influence of tobacco smoke; for example smokers who do breast feed wean earlier, probably because chemicals in tobacco smoke inhibit milk production

Breastfeeding trends in Singapore

10.1016/0277-9536(89)90270-0Social Science and Medicine283271-274SSMD

Breastfeeding trends in Singapore

About 60% of well-to-do mothers in Singapore initiate breastfeeding. This value compares favourably with the 36% recently recorded for poor mothers, but it is still unacceptably low compared to the 85-95% of well-to-do mothers and 90% of poor mothers who breastfed in the 1950s and 1960s. There has been a general decline in the incidence of breastfeeding over the last 35 years. Differences between the well-to-do and poor groups were initially small. A pronounced decline in the incidence of breastfeeding among the well-to-do mothers followed; a reversal in this downward trend in well-to-do mothers over the past 10 yeats has narrowed, and indeed reversed, the difference between the two groups. Similar trends can be found for the duration of breastfeeding. Whilst the overall decline probably reflects increasing affluence and 'Westernization' of the population the variation between these two economic groups is probably a result of differences in education. Among the three major ethnic communities, Chinese favoured breastfeeding least and Malays favoured it most. The differences are believed to be related to cultural differences and the ability of traditional practices and beliefs among the ethnic groups to resist the modern trend towards bottlefeeding.breastfeeding patterns ethnicity socio-economic class

Iatrogenic blood loss in extreme preterm infants due to frequent laboratory tests and procedures

Stemcel biology/Regenerative medicine (incl. bloodtransfusion