Parent-infant co-sleeping and the implications for sudden infant death syndrome

In 2015 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) updated its 2006 guideline to clarify the association between parent infant co-sleeping and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The practice of co-sleeping is a topic of continuing controversy and debate. Rather than highlighting the risks, the emphasis of the NICE guideline is to provide parents with balanced information so that they can make informed decisions about where their babies sleep. This contradicts previous public health messages on co-sleeping that discourages parents from the practice. Consequently, the updated national guideline has been criticised for failing to provide parents with safer sleep information, which has led to widespread confusion for parents and professionals. Health professionals can deliver safer sleep advice to support parents in their decision-making. However, as a result of inconsistent guidelines and evidence about parent-infant co-sleeping, health professionals may feel apprehensive and ill-equipped to provide advice and support. This article draws on a non-exhaustive literature review to discuss the risks and benefits of parent-infant co-sleeping, and the implications of this practice for SIDS. It also aims to provide transparency and improve understanding for health professionals so that they can support parents to adopt safer sleep strategies for their baby

Deep optical imaging of the field of PC1643+4631A&B, II: Estimating the colours and redshifts of faint galaxies

In an investigation of the cause of the cosmic microwave background decrement in the field of the z = 3.8 quasar pair PC1643+4631, we have carried out a study to photometrically estimate the redshifts of galaxies in deep multi-colour optical images of the field taken with the WHT. To examine the possibility that a massive cluster of galaxies lies in the field, we have attempted to recover simulated galaxies with intrinsic colours matching those of the model galaxies used in the photometric redshift estimation. We find that when such model galaxies are added to our images, there is considerable scatter of the recovered galaxy redshifts away from the model value; this scatter is larger than that expected from photometric errors and is the result of confusion, simply due to ground-based seeing, between objects in the field. We have also compared the likely efficiency of the photometric redshift technique against the colour criteria used to select z>3 galaxies via the strong colour signature of the Lyman-limit break. We find that these techniques may significantly underestimate the true surface density of z>3, due to confusion between the high-redshift galaxies and other objects near the line of sight. We argue that the actual surface density of z=3 galaxies may be as much as 6 times greater than that estimated by previous ground-based studies, and note that this conclusion is consistent with the surface density of high-redshift objects found in the HDF. Finally, we conclude that all ground-based deep field surveys are inevitably affected by confusion, and note that reducing the effective seeing in ground-based images will be of paramount importance in observing the distant universe.Comment: 18 pages, 60 figures, submitted to MNRAS, 2 large figure avaliable at ftp://ftp.mrao.cam.ac.uk:/pub/PC1643/paper2.figure50.eps and ftp://ftp.mrao.cam.ac.uk:/pub/PC1643/paper2.figure51.ep

What influences Australian women to not drink during pregnancy?

There is a strong social norm against consuming alcohol during pregnancy. However, many women do not realise they are pregnant until the sixth week and are not provided with information about the risks of consuming alcohol until they visit a health professional in the second trimester. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 midwives and 12 pregnant women from two regions inNSWin 2008–09 to explore attitudes towards alcohol consumption during pregnancy, and the factors that may encourage or inhibit women from following the recommendation to abstain from drinking while pregnant. Both groups noted the social issues around pregnant women consuming alcohol due to perceived social norms and the challenges in not revealing early pregnancy status at social events

Severe Paradoxical Disease Activation Following Alemtuzumab Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis.

A 39-year old right-handed agricultural service engineer developed rapidly evolving severe relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MR imaging showed multiple T2 hyperintensities throughout his neuro-axis (Figure 1A). Several lesions showed restricted diffusion, and two enhanced. He received steroids for each relapse, making a full recovery (EDSS 0).Wellcome Trus

Conceptualizing the distinctiveness of Team Coaching

Purpose: Team coaching (TC) is a popular new addition to the team learning and development toolkit. However, the conceptualization of TC and the distinction between TC, team training, team development and team building interventions remains unclear. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The authors address this significant gap by abductively exploring how TC is conceptualised in practice (n=410). The authors survey practitioners engaged in delivering TC to ask how they would define TC and distinguish it from other team interventions. Findings: A thematic analysis of the data reveals eight themes, which can be used to define TC and illustrate areas of overlap and distinctiveness with other team interventions. Research limitations/implications: The absence of a clearly defined construct is hindering the development of a rigorous theory of TC. The contribution of the paper is, therefore, a clear and comprehensive definition of TC, which can be used by researchers and practitioners alike when working within the domain of TC. Originality/value: The paper provides the first systematic exploration of a definition of TC in relation to alternative team interventions. By utilising an abductive approach in the research, the authors are able to capitalise on practitioner experience in this practice-led field

Deep optical imaging of the field of PC1643+4631A&B, I: Spatial distributions and the counts of faint galaxies

We present deep optical images of the PC1643+4631 field obtained at the WHT. This field contains two quasars at redshifts z=3.79 & 3.83 and a cosmic microwave background (CMB) decrement detected with the Ryle Telescope. The images are in U,G,V,R and I filters, and are complete to 25th magnitude in R and G and to 25.5 in U. The isophotal galaxy counts are consistent with the results of Metcalde et al. (1996), Hogg et al. (1997), and others. We find an excess of robust high-redshift Ly-break galaxy candidates with 25.0<R<25.5 compared with the mean number found in the fields studied by Steidel et al. -we expect 7 but find 16 - but we do not find that the galaxies are concentrated in the direction of the CMB decrement. However, we are still not sure of the distance to the system causing the CMB decrement. We have also used our images to compare the commonly used object-finding algorithms of FOCAS and SExtractor: we find FOCAS the more efficient at detecting faint objects and the better at dealing with composite objects, whereas SExtractor's morphological classification is more reliable, especially for faint objects near the resolution limit. More generally, we have also compared the flux lost using isophotal apertures on a real image with that on a noise-only image: recovery of artificial galaxies from the noise-only image significantly overestimates the flux lost from the galaxies, and we find that the corrections made using this technique suffer a systematic error of some 0.4 magnitudes.Comment: 17 pages, 40 figures, submitted to MNRAS, 1 large figure avaliable at ftp://ftp.mrao.cam.ac.uk:/pub/PC1643/paper1.figure18.p

Satellite tracking of offenders and integrated offender management: a local case study

This article reports findings from an evaluation of a Global Positioning System (GPS) pilot that took place in the Cardiff Integrated Offender Management Unit (IOMU). The evaluation was based primarily upon qualitative interviews with about half of the tracked sample of offenders, plus interviews with key stakeholders from the IOMU, police and courts. The findings revealed a general consensus of positive views from both offenders and practitioners about the experience of GPS tracking. However, these generally positive outcomes were clearly related to the voluntary and relatively targeted nature of the pilot, which would be challenged if/when GPS tracking was introduced more widely