Involvement of pastors’ wives in educating nursing mothers on childcare practices in Ibadan North local government area, Nigeria

Poor childcare practices among nursing mothers have been implicated as one of the factors influencing high child morbidity and mortality in many developing countries including Nigeria. Many health promotion and education approaches have been used in previous studies to improve childcare practices but very few have considered the inherent potentials of using faith-based strategy as one of the acceptable means of health promotion in many developing countries. This descriptive cross-sectional study was aimed at investigating the involvement of Pastors’ wives as change agents in educating nursing mothers on childcare practices in Ibadan North Local Government Area. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select pastors’ wives from all the registered churches in the Local Government Area. A pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. One hundred and twenty-eight (N=128) pastors’ wives with age of 46.1±9.3 years were interviewed. Overall, 9.4% had never taught or preached on childcare practices or other health-related matters to mothers/women in the church before. Analysis showed that 42.2%, 26.6% and 31.3% of Pastor’s wives had good, fair and poor level of basic communication techniques, respectively. Age and educational status of Pastors’ wives significantly affect the level of communication between Pastors’ wives and mothers in the church (p<0.05). Involvement of Pastors’ wives with the mothers on childcare practices was through counselling (90.6%), teaching (53.1%), preaching (29.7%) and phone calls (18.8%). Counselling was the most preferred method (68.0%) of communication. This study establishes the fact that Pastors’ wives and nursing mothers have been communicating health matters through counselling, which can be used as an opportunity for improving child care through faith-based setting.Keywords: Child health care practices, Pastors’ wife involvement, Faith-based approach, Nursing mothersAfr. J. Biomed. Res. Vol. 22 (May, 2019); 145- 15

Changes in mediators of inflammation and pro-thrombosis after 12 months of dietary modification in adults with metabolic syndrome

Objective: This study evaluated the effects of a 12-month dietary modification on indices of inflammation and pro-thrombosis in adults with metabolic syndrome (MS).Materials and methods: This longitudinal study involved 252 adults with MS recruited from the Bodija market, Ibadan and its environs. Participants were placed on 20%, 30% and 50% calories obtained from protein, total fat and carbohydrate respectively and were followed up monthly for 12 months. Anthropometry and blood pressure were measured using standard methods. Fasting plasma glucose (FPG), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), fibrinogen, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1)], interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) were measured using spectrophotometric methods and ELISA as appropriate. Data was analysed using ANCOVA, Student’s t-test, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. P-values less than 0.05 were considered significant.Results: After 6 months of dietary modification, there was a significant reduction in waist circumference (WC), while the levels of HDL-C, fibrinogen and PAI-1 were significantly increased when compared with the corresponding baseline values. However, WC and fibrinogen reduced significantly, while HDL-C and IL-10 significantly increased after 12 months of dietary modification as compared with the respective baseline values.Conclusion: Long-term regular dietary modification may be beneficial in ameliorating inflammation and pro-thrombosis in metabolic syndrome.Keywords: Dietary modification, fibrinogen, interleukins, metabolic syndrome, plasminogen activator inhibito

Public health nutrition potentials of two cultivars of commonly consumed cowpeas (“Oloyin” and “Drum”) in south-west Nigeria

Background: The nutritive value of cowpeas has never been in doubt. However, the specific nutrients contents of the commonly consumed cowpeas in Nigeria have not been adequately documented in literature, especially the effects of processing on these nutrients.Objective: This study investigated nutrient content of two local cultivars of commonly consumed cowpeas and their public health nutrition potentials in southwest Nigeria.Methods: Two local cultivars of cowpea, vigna spp. “Oloyin” and “Drum” were identified through rapid assessment method to be the most commonly consumed in southwest Nigeria. Samples were analysed for macro and micro-nutrients, using the official methods of AOAC.Results: Crude protein, crude fat and fibres were significantly higher (p˂0.05) in raw samples of “Drum” with 24.21±0.10; 3.69±0.20 and 3.60±0.02 gm respectively when compared with “Oloyin”, which recorded 23.60±0.20; 3.62±0.01 and 3.58±0.02 for the same nutrients per 100 gm of samples. Similar nutrient values were obtained for cooked samples, except for crude fibre, which was higher in “Oloyin” sample than the “Drum”. The gross energy value increased for both samples after cooking. The highest mineral content in both samples was potassium and these values were increased after cooking. The least mineral content in both samples (raw and cooked) was copper and this was however higher in “Drum” than “Oloyin” both in raw and cooked samples.Conclusion: Findings provide public health nutrition information to make informed choice and suggestions for the intake of specific nutrients as may be recommended in diet-therapy.Keywords: Vigna spp. of cowpea; Nutrient content, processing method

Comparative assessment of the effect of earthing grid configurations on the earthing system using IEEE and Finite Element Methods

In this paper, comparative assessments of four earthing grid system configurations (the triangular shape, the rectangular shape, the T-shape and the L-shape) are performed with the aim of determining the best earthing grid configuration in terms of earthing grid resistance, Ground Potential Rise (GPR), touch voltage and step voltage for a typical food and beverages industry in Nigeria. The IEEE earthing technique and the Finite Element Method (FEM) are employed to simulate the earthing grid system configurations using commercially available software (Electrical Transient Analyser Program, ETAP 12.0). The results revealed that L-shape is the most preferred earthing configuration in terms of grid resistance, GPR and step voltage with the IEEE values of 0.292Ω, 1610.9 V and 436.5 V, respectively and FEM values of 0.195Ω, 1077.1 V and 186.6 V, respectively. Meanwhile, the rectangular shape gives the best result for designed touch voltage with the value of 284.5 V for the IEEE method and 286 V for the FEM method followed by the L-shape with the values of 340.8 V for the IEEE technique and 294.8 V for the FEM. Both the IEEE method and the FEM return the same trend of result for all grids. However, IEEE method is much better in terms of computational speed. Keywords: Earthing grid system, Earthing Configurations Electrical Transient Analyser Program (ETAP), Finite Element Method (FEM), IEEE earthing techniqu