Postpartum anxiety, depression and social health: findings from a population-based survey of Australian women

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Whilst the prevalence and correlates of postpartum depression are well established, far less is known about postpartum anxiety. Studies have described the association between socio-demographic factors and postpartum depression, yet few have explored the association between stressors in women's lives around the time of having a baby and maternal psychological morbidity. This study aimed to describe the population prevalence of postpartum depression, anxiety, co-morbid anxiety and depression and social health issues; and to examine the association between postpartum psychological and social health issues experienced in the six months following birth.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Population-based survey of all women who gave birth in Victoria and South Australia in September/October 2007. Women were mailed the survey questionnaire six months following birth. Anxiety and depression were measured using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Questionnaires were completed by 4,366 women. At six months postpartum the proportion of women scoring above the 'normal' range on the DASS-21 was 12.7% for anxiety,17.4% for depression, and 8.1% for co-morbid depression and anxiety. Nearly half the sample reported experiencing stressful life events or social health issues in the six months following birth, with 38.3% reporting one to two and 8.8% reporting three or more social health issues. Women reporting three or more social health issues were significantly more likely to experience postnatal anxiety (Adj OR = 4.12, 95% CI 3.0-5.5) or depression (Adj OR = 5.11, 95% CI = 3.9-6.7) and co-morbid anxiety <it>and </it>depression (Adj OR = 5.41, 95% CI 3.8-7.6) than women who did not report social health issues.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Health care providers including midwives, nurses, medical practitioners and community health workers need to be alert to women's social circumstances and life events experienced in the perinatal period and the interplay between social and emotional health. Usual management for postpartum mental health issues including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and pharmacological approaches may not be effective if social health issues are not addressed. Coordinated and integrated perinatal care that is responsive to women's social health may lead to improvements in women's emotional wellbeing following birth.</p

Petrological studies of the alkaline complexes of eastern Uganda

Of the ten Tertiary and pre-Tertiary alkaline igneous centres in Eastern Uganda, three (Budeda, Tororo and Toror) are described in this thesis, and a summary of a fourth (Napak) is presented. The earliest intrusive rock at Budeda and Napak is melteigite/pyroxenite which in both areas becomes converted to variable ijolite by replacement in the form of diffuse patches and well-defined veins. Melanite, wollastonite and calcite are characteristic of later phases of ijolite at Napak and Tororo. Nepheline syenites are produced by the development of feldspar in the marginal zone of the ijolites. At Budeda, cancrinite and calcite also occur in these rocks. They show intrusive relations with the fenites but are gradational towards the ijolite. At Napak, the cancrinite syenites and related feldspathic types occur as dyke-like masses within the ijolite. Feldspathization also affects the mixed rocks of the agglomerate (including ijolite and nepheline syenite) adjacent to the carbonatite at Tororo, locally producing orthoclasites. At Toror, the gneisses around the carbonatite are in places converted to feldspathic fenites (potash-feldspar rocks). Feldspathic breccias and intrusive rocks of similar composition (about 12% K2O) include trachytes, which evidently represent the mobilized products. The carbonatite at Budeda is a small mass formed by the replacement of melteigite, but at the other complexes it is clearly intrusive. Pyroxene, biotite and magnetite are considered to be derived from assimilated silicate rocks. Around the intrusive complexes fenites were formed by alkali metasomatism of the Basement. At Budeda syenitic fenites are widely developed, and have a foliated character which is related to early crushing. Locally the Budeda fenites are nepheline-bearing; they are also extensively feldspathized. The writer finds no direct evidence (with the exception of the trachytes) of mobilization of fenites to give rocks of the intrusive series. The intrusive rocks are considered to be derived from a melanephelinite magma, which by differentiation and the retention of volatiles led ultimately to the formation of a carbonatite residuum.<p

Rhesus macaques compensate for reproductive delay following ecological adversity early in life

Cayo Santiago is supported by the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) of the National Institute of Health, grant 2 P40 OD012217, and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Medical Sciences Campus. L. L. was supported by the Edison STEM-NET Student Research Fellowship Program and in part by the Richard D. Green endowment at the CSULB College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. S. J. G. was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (award # T32GM138075).Adversity early in life can shape the reproductive potential of individuals through negative effects on health and life span. However, long-lived populations with multiple reproductive events may present alternative life history strategies to optimize reproductive schedules and compensate for shorter life spans. Here, we quantify the effects of major hurricanes and density dependence as sources of early-life ecological adversity on Cayo Santiago rhesus macaque female reproduction and decompose their effects onto the mean age-specific fertility, reproductive pace, and lifetime reproductive success (LRS). Females experiencing major hurricanes exhibit a delayed reproductive debut but maintain the pace of reproduction past debut and show a higher mean fertility during prime reproductive ages, relative to unaffected females. Increasing density at birth is associated to a decrease in mean fertility and reproductive pace, but such association is absent at intermediate densities. When combined, our study reveals that hurricanes early in life predict a delay-overshoot pattern in mean age-specific fertility that supports the maintenance of LRS. In contrast to predictive adaptive response models of accelerated reproduction, this long-lived population presents a novel reproductive strategy where females who experience major natural disasters early in life ultimately overcome their initial reproductive penalty with no major negative fitness outcomes. Density presents a more complex relation with reproduction that suggests females experiencing a population regulated at intermediate densities early in life will escape density dependence and show optimized reproductive schedules. Our results support hypotheses about life history trade-offs in which adversity-affected females ensure their future reproductive potential by allocating more energy to growth or maintenance processes at younger adult ages.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Conservation practice could benefit from routine testing and publication of management outcomes

Effective conservation requires a step change in the way practitioners can contribute to science and can have access to research outputs. The journal Conservation Evidence was established in 2004 to help practitioners surmount several obstacles they face when attempting to document the effects of their conservation actions scientifically. It is easily and freely accessible online. It is free to publish in and it enables global communication of the effects of practical trials and experiments, which are virtually impossible to get published in most scientific journals. The driving force behind Conservation Evidence is the need to generate and share scientific information about the effects of interventions

Human Cytomegalovirus Glycoprotein UL16 Causes Intracellular Sequestration of NKG2D Ligands, Protecting Against Natural Killer Cell Cytotoxicity

The activating receptor, NKG2D, is expressed on a variety of immune effector cells and recognizes divergent families of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I–related ligands, including the MIC and ULBP proteins. Infection, stress, or transformation can induce NKG2D ligand expression, resulting in effector cell activation and killing of the ligand-expressing target cell. The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) membrane glycoprotein, UL16, binds to three of the five known ligands for human NKG2D. UL16 is retained in the endoplasmic reticulum and cis-Golgi apparatus of cells and causes MICB to be similarly retained and stabilized within cells. Coexpression of UL16 markedly reduces cell surface levels of MICB, ULBP1, and ULBP2, and decreases susceptibility to natural killer cell–mediated cytotoxicity. Domain swapping experiments demonstrate that the transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains of UL16 are important for intracellular retention of UL16, whereas the ectodomain of UL16 participates in down-regulation of NKG2D ligands. The intracellular sequestration of NKG2D ligands by UL16 represents a novel HCMV immune evasion mechanism to add to the well-documented viral strategies directed against antigen presentation by classical MHC molecules

KRAB zinc-finger proteins localise to novel KAP1-containing foci that are adjacent to PML nuclear bodies

The KRAB-zinc finger proteins (KRAB-ZFPs) represent a very large, but poorly understood, family of transcriptional regulators in mammals. They are thought to repress transcription via their interaction with KRAB-associated protein 1 (KAP1), which then assembles a complex of chromatin modifiers to lay down histone marks that are associated with inactive chromatin. Studies of KRAB-ZFP/KAP1-mediated gene silencing, using reporter constructs and ectopically expressed proteins, have shown colocalisation of both KAP1 and repressed reporter target genes to domains of constitutive heterochromatin in the nucleus. However, we show here that although KAP1 does indeed become recruited to pericentric heterochromatin during differentiation of mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells, endogenous KRAB-ZFPs do not. Rather, KRAB-ZFPs and KAP1 relocalise to novel nucleoplasmic foci that we have termed KRAB- and KAP1-associated (KAKA) foci. HP1s can also concentrate in these foci and there is a close spatial relationship between KAKA nuclear foci and PML nuclear bodies. Finally, we reveal differential requirements for the recruitment of KAP1 to pericentric heterochromatin and KAKA foci, and suggest that KAKA foci may contain sumoylated KAP1 - the form of the protein that is active in transcriptional repression

Conditional over-expression of PITX1 causes skeletal muscle dystrophy in mice

Paired-like homeodomain transcription factor 1 (PITX1) was specifically up-regulated in patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) by comparing the genome-wide mRNA expression profiles of 12 neuromuscular disorders. In addition, it is the only known direct transcriptional target of the double homeobox protein 4 (DUX4) of which aberrant expression has been shown to be the cause of FSHD. To test the hypothesis that up-regulation of PITX1 contributes to the skeletal muscle atrophy seen in patients with FSHD, we generated a tet-repressible muscle-specific Pitx1 transgenic mouse model in which expression of PITX1 in skeletal muscle can be controlled by oral administration of doxycycline. After PITX1 was over-expressed in the skeletal muscle for 5 weeks, the mice exhibited significant loss of body weight and muscle mass, decreased muscle strength, and reduction of muscle fiber diameters. Among the muscles examined, the tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius, quadricep, bicep, tricep and deltoid showed significant reduction of muscle mass, while the soleus, masseter and diaphragm muscles were not affected. The most prominent pathological change was the development of atrophic muscle fibers with mild necrosis and inflammatory infiltration. The affected myofibers stained heavily with NADH-TR with the strongest staining in angular-shaped atrophic fibers. Some of the atrophic fibers were also positive for embryonic myosin heavy chain using immunohistochemistry. Immunoblotting showed that the p53 was up-regulated in the muscles over-expressing PITX1. The results suggest that the up-regulation of PITX1 followed by activation of p53-dependent pathways may play a major role in the muscle atrophy developed in the mouse model

Experimental evaluation of the wake characteristics of cross flow turbine arrays

One key factor in the exploitation of tidal energy is the study of interactions of turbines when working in tidal turbine farms. The Momentum Reversal and Lift (MRL) turbine is a novel cross flow turbine. The three blades rotate around a common central horizontal axis which is parallel to their own axis and perpendicular to the flow. The novelty of the MRL turbine is that it relies on the combination of both lift and momentum reversal (drag) for energy extraction. Scaled MRL turbine models of 0.164 m in diameter were used to characterise the flow in three different tidal array settings. Detailed maps of axial velocity profiles and velocity deficits downstream of the turbine are presented, enabling the visualisation of characteristic flow patterns. The results show that the MRL generates lower velocity deficits and turbulence intensities in the near wake than those associated with horizontal axis turbines. The downstream wake was not completely symmetrical which was related to the geometry of the device but also due to the flow developed in the flume. Amongst the three array configurations studied, a fence of turbines with the lowest separation provided the highest power output

Experimental optimisation of power for large arrays of cross-flow tidal turbines

As commercial scale tidal energy devices are shortly to be deployed in the first arrays, the knowledge of how different array layouts perform is a key and under-examined field. Here, the Momentum Reversal Lift (MRL) turbine, developed by the University of Exeter, is deployed in five different array layouts utilising up to 15 devices. The use of dynamic turbines allows the inclusion of analysis of the effects of flow direction in the wake. The layouts investigated explore the effect of lateral and stream-wise turbine spacings as well as differences between staggered and in-line layouts on power. The staggered array with decreased streamwise spacing is shown to have the highest total power per ‘footprint’ area among the layouts tested. For the staggered arrays, increased downstream separation had little effect on total power generated, while decreasing the lateral spacing below 2 rotor diameters decreased the power. The in-line arrays showed a lower power per device but similar total power. It was also shown that increased in-flow into a turbine didn't necessarily lead to an increased power extraction. The decrease in power with a decrease in streamwise spacing is in-line with theoretical and CFD predictions