Asian Infants Research Articles

Diet and state of nutrition of Pakistani infants in Bradford, Yorkshire.

Some observations on Pakistani immigrant families are reported with particular attention directed to dietary practices. The observations were made in Bradford Yorkshire where a colony of some 13000 Asians mostly Pakistani live. As Dr. W.D. Dolton Deputy Medical Officer of the Health Department in Bradford suspected that the health of infants and young children in the immigrant families might be adversely affected by poor nutrition the study concentrated on the following: the feeding of Pakistani infants during the 1st year of life; the weight gains; morbidity and mortality; and the dietary habits of Pakistani immigrants in general. The Pakistani make use of the available maternal and child health services and most infants came under medical and public health supervision. The immigrant mothers adopted an artificial infant-feeding regimen similar to that of English infants in Bradford. To supplement this general account of feeding practices 100 Pakistani mothers with children under 18 months of age were interviewed. 11 infants were still receiving breast milk at the time of the interview. 5 of these were getting breast milk only. 44 of the remaining 89 mothers reported that they had stopped breast feeding abruptly; 25 indicated that the process was gradual. The kinds of processed milk given the 89 infants included Ostermilk Cow and Gate National dried milk and fresh milk. At birth the Pakistani infants were about 10 ounces lighter than English infants in Bradford but weight gains during the 1st year of life were about similar in the 2 groups. The infant mortality rate in Asian infants was 47.2 as compared with 22.7 in non-Asian infants with the difference primarily because of neonatal deaths in the Asian group. There was no evidence that the higher mortality in the Asian infants was associated with nutritional factors. The adult community consumed a diet consisting almost totally of the kinds of foods they ate in Pakistan.

ETHNIC GROUP DIFFERENCES IN PLASMA BILIRUBIN LEVELS OF FULL-TERM, HEALTHY SINGAPORE NEWBORNS

In full-term Chinese, Malay, and Indian infants of Singapore neonatal hyperbilirubinemia generally is more severe and of longer duration than in Singapore-born British infants. The ethnic group differences in neonatal bilirubin levels might be the expression of previously unrecognized genetic differences in bilirubin metabolism, although the importance of some environmental factors is not completely understood. The ordinary definitions of "physiologic" jaundice, which have evolved principally from observations in Western countries, are not appropriate to Singapore-born Asian infants and may not be appropriate to infants in many parts of the world. Further geographic studies of neonatal bilirubinemia are indicated.