Dead Infants Research Articles

Art, glitter, and glitz: mainstream playwrights and popular theatre in 1920s America

Introduction by Arthur Gewirtz and James J. Kolb Mainstream Playwrights (Re)Claiming O'Neill's Strange Interlude As a Modernist Theatre Text by Thomas R. Adler Stillborn Future: Dead and Dying Infants and Children as a Secondary in the Plays of Eugene O'Neill: An Analysis of the Image in Desire Under the Elms by Linda L. Herr De New Dat's Moiderin' de Old: Oedipal Struggle as Class Conflict in Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape by Julia Walker Tempest in Black and White: The 1924 Staging of Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings by Glenda Frank Not Enough?: The High Comedy of Philip Barry by Leonard Ashley Philip Barry's Holiday: High Comedy as Morality Play by Harry B. Parker The Subway: Sophie as Elmer Rice's Ms. Zero by Cynthia McCown Without a Plot, Idea, Hero, or Heroine: The Unlikely Strategy of Sidney Howard's Lucky Sam McCarver by Cynthia McCown Some Kind of Damned Religion: A Reading of What Price Glory? by Maxwell Andersen and Laurence Stallings by Stanley Brodwin Baker's Boys: The Legacy of George Pierce Baker by Lue Morgan Douthit Broadway, The Elements of Success: An Analysis of Jed Harris's 1926 Production of the Play by Philip Dunning and George Abbott by E. James Zeiger Playwrights and Power: The Dramatists Guild's Struggle for the 1926 Minimum Basic Aggreement by T. J. Walsh Popular Theatre John Barrymore & Company, 1920-25: American Standard-Bearers of the Shakespeare Company by Michael A. Morrison When Actors Were Still Players by Ronald H. Wainscott No Sirree! A One Night Stand with the Algonquin's Vicious Circle by Jay Malarcher The Grand-Guignol in New York City: October-November, 1923: Violence Fails to Draw an Audience by John M. Callahan The Other Worlds of Ring Lardner: Popular Entertainment and the Legitimate Theatre by Richard Pioreck Feathers, Finals, and Frou-Frou: Florenz Ziegfeld's Exoticized Follies Girls by Ann Marie McEntee Gags, Girls, and Guffaws: Burlesque in Downtown New York in the 1920s by William Green Barbette: That Daring Young [Wo]Man on the Flying Trapeze by Joe E. Jeffreys A. H. Woods, Producer: A Thrill a Minute, a Laugh a Second! by Julian M. Kaufman The Girl Friends: Lew Fields and the Early Musicals of Rodgers, Hart, and Fields by Jason Rubin Bibliography Index

Morbidity and mortality of low birth weight infants in the New Born Unit of Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi

Morbidity and mortality of low birth weight (LBW) infants at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) has previously been found to be high. Other centres have shown that even with lack of neonatal intensive care facilities, selective interventions can be implemented that improve neonatal survival rates. It is important to identify those factors at KNH that when selectively modified, will improve the quality of care hence survival rates. To quantify the morbidity and mortality of LBW infants in KNH. To audit the quality of care and identify factors that can be selectively modified to improve the quality of care and improve the currently low survival rates. Retrospective study utilising case notes. New born unit, Kenyatta National Hospital, Nairobi. All LBW infants admitted to the NBU at KNH from January to December 2000. Out of an expected 694 files, 533 (77%) were studied. The male to female ratio and LBW to VLBW ratio was 1:1 respectively. Small for gestational age (SGA) accounted for 11.6%. Overall mortality was 57.4% (574/1000 admissions) while mortality for SGA was 37%. Infants born out of KNH had significantly higher mortality (p=0.0047). Compared to Caeserian delivery, infants born via spontaneous vertex delivery had higher mortality (p=0.0087). The leading diagnoses on admission or death were respiratory distress(69%), apnoeic attacks (42%) suspected sepsis and jaundice (37% each), hypothermia(27%) and anaemia(17%). By time of death or discharge, 43% had no laboratory investigations done. While 37% had suspected sepsis, only 14% had blood culture done. Antibiotics were started in 460 (86%) of infants yet only 37% had diagnosis of suspected sepsis. Change of antibiotics was guided by culture and sensitivity reports in only 62(13.5%). Apnoeic spells were managed with rectal aminophyline in 156(29%) infants of whom 19(12%) survived. The terminal events for the dead infants included recurrent apnoeic spells. The only mode of nutrition was enteric feeding in 59% with breast milk, formula or pasteurized cows milk by nasogastric tube, breast feeding or cup feeding. Except for dextrose water, parenteral nutrition was not utilised. Of 63 infants dying with associated anaemia, 43(68%) were not transfused due to lack of reliable blood supply. Compared to previous studies, mortality of LBW infants in KNH- NBU has increased over the years. Improvement in supportive care as regards nutrition, temperature regulation, laboratory back up and respiratory support is recommended. There is a place for trial of kangaroo mother care and simple continous positive airways pressure administration methods. There is a need to ascertain the efficacy of the method of aminophyline administration.

Transport of dead infant mountain gorillas by mothers and unrelated females

AbstractThis report describes prolonged carriage of the corpses of two mountain gorilla infants by both related and unrelated adult females. Two hypotheses regarding this transport are considered: 1) that maternal behavior toward unrelated infants may be a by‐product of the hormonal condition of pregnancy, and 2) that the animals may be “learning to mother,” as nulliparous females could benefit from the experience of handling an infant that is no longer alive. Some factors pertinent to the event of infant deaths in captivity are considered. Zoo Biol 23:375–378, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Afro-Gynocentric Darwinism in the Drama of George Elroy Boyd

Nationalism and fascism begin at home and take their sustenance from the family undergoing a crisis, particularly one of identity. Given the brutal tragedy of the four-century-long African slave trade (with its bloodily efficient exploitation, sexual and economic, plus often liquidation, of its human capital), its diasporic survivors, especially intellectuals and artists, focus necessarily on the situation – read plight – of the Black family. Certes, the nouns family, identity, and crisis are virtual synonyms in the literature of the African Atlantic, a cultural geography that includes Canada (as much as it does the better-known ‘Neo-African’ spaces of the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and Western Europe). Of course, a signal balm for these familial identity crises involves the efficacy – and risks – of cultural nationalism. Thus, two dramas by African-Nova Scotian – or Africadian—— playwright George Elroy Boyd depict Black familial strife that provokes acts congruent with nationalism – and fascism. Boyd’s teleplay Consecrated Ground (1983, 1996) relates the struggle of a Black woman, Clarice, to bury her dead infant son in Black community space, despite the objections of a white-controlled metropolis. His play, Gideon’s Blues (1996), narrates the events that prod a Black mother to murder her adult son and only child. Boyd examines the African-Canadian family and its race, class and gender issues, to excavate the tensions between an attractively protective cultural nationalism and a sorrowfully deranging, self-destructive fascism.

Infantry and Infanticide in A Farewell to Arms

When repositioned within the ambivalent beginnings of literary modernism, as well as within the genocidal history emerging at the time, the stillborn infant in Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms reveals the impossibility of assimilating the historical upheavals that he witnessed firsthand. Both the trench warfare of wwi and the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide complicated for Hemingway the potential of modernity. This article proposes that we recast Hemingway's biography in terms of the tragic cultural moment during which he was writing and connect his figure of the dead, stillborn, and choking infant with the forces of history. Reading Hemingway's sense of history beside his dead infants suggests that what is choking is not simply Hemingway's infant, but also modernist discourse, and the criticism struggling to interpret it.

Wild Chimpanzees at Bossou-Nimba: Deaths Through a Flu-Like Epidemic in 2003 and the Green-Corridor Project

The present paper reports the death of wild chimpanzees through a flu-like epidemic at Bossou, Guinea, West Africa. The community at Bossou has been studied continuously since 1976. Records from the past 28 years show that the number of chimpanzees in the Bossou community has been relatively stable, at around 20 individuals. In late November 2003, chimpanzees at Bossou began to cough. Within a month, five chimpanzees died: two very old females, one adolescent male, and two infants. The mothers of the two dead infants continued to carry the corpses, which eventually mummified. One mother used a stick to chase flies away from the dead infant's body in addition to using her hands. The transportation of infants' mummified bodies may be yet another example of cultural behavior unique to this community. A 12 year-old young mother, who lost her first offspring in this epidemic, remained with the community for two months following the death of the infant, after which she disappeared, most likely immigrating to a neighboring community. We inspected the year-by-year change of age-sex composition in the Bossou community. This revealed that the proportion of old members gradually increased while many young members immigrated. Such a gradual change in the population in addition to the epidemic suggests that this community is in serious danger. The paper also introduces our conservation efforts to attempt to save this important community: the Green corridor project which entails the planting of trees in the surrounding savanna in order to create a passage between Bossou and the Nimba Mountains, 4 km away. This might be a model case of connecting chimpanzee habitats that have become isolated through increasing human activity, a very common problem in West Africa.

Infanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewsFull AccessInfanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who KillPhillip J. Resnick, M.D., and Susan Hatters-Friedman, M.D.Phillip J. ResnickSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., and Susan Hatters-FriedmanSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Aug 2003https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.54.8.1172AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The stated goals of this edited volume are to provide background for future research endeavors in identifying women who are at risk of committing infanticide and to help attorneys and mental health experts who participate in infanticide criminal cases. Infanticide: Psychosocial and Legal Perspectives on Mothers Who Kill gives very good coverage to a variety of topics, including postpartum mental illnesses, denial of pregnancy, epidemiology of infanticide, and legal issues related to infanticide. Most chapter authors are nationally known experts. Laura J. Miller, M.D., provides an excellent discussion of pregnancy denial, and the chapters by Katherine L. Wisner, M.D., M.S., and coauthors and by Debra Sichel, M.D., present useful information about postpartum disorders in an easily understood manner.Spinelli's chapter on neonaticide—murder of the newborn during the first 24 hours of life—is one of the less scientifically based chapters, making broad generalizations that are not supported by the author's evidence. Spinelli reports on forensic interviews, largely requested by the defense, of 16 women charged with neonaticide and one charged with attempted neonaticide. A majority of the defendants' scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) suggested dissociative disorders. However, the DES is easy to fake in the absence of measures for malingering. Mendlowicz and associates (1) observed that the accused women were given "an extensive checklist of mental symptoms [that] may inadvertently educate them about psychiatric symptoms" in order to provide a defense for their actions. Spinelli suggests that when these women went into labor, they often did not realize it was labor. She adds, "Because the reality was intolerable, a brief dissociative psychosis occurred. On reintegration, they could not account for the dead infant."In contrast, authors in multiple countries (2,3,4) have reported that neonaticide is primarily a phenomenon of nonpsychiatrically ill young mothers who kill their unwanted infants in desperation. Spinelli's work is useful in that it offers an alternative way to view neonaticide in specific cases. However, her suggestion that dissociation predominates in neonaticides is not consistent with other studies and may be due to referral bias.The book includes a thorough analysis of legal defenses presented in infanticide cases. In several chapters, authors search for ways to relieve young women of responsibility when they may or may not have a valid defense. One chapter author, Judith Macfarlane, J.D., suggests the "involuntary act defense" as well as the insanity defense, stating that "in many cases the mother fails to rescue her baby from a toilet or is unable to move subsequent to delivery and thus leaves the child to die. … Depersonalization disorder may be a good defense … since this dissociative state leaves the mother with the sensation that she is unable to control her own movements."Macfarlane also argues for the unsubstantiated "neonaticide syndrome," which thus far the courts have wisely rejected (5). No act alone should be allowed to define an illness. For example, "homicidal insanity," a form of "moral insanity," was a defense in the 1800s. It was ultimately rejected as having no valid scientific basis.We do recommend this book to clinicians treating women of childbearing age and to attorneys seeking to increase their knowledge about perinatal mental illnesses. Hopefully, the contributions of various authors can lead to earlier identification of women at risk of harming their children to avoid these tragedies. "The murder of one single child is made negligible by nothing, not even Hiroshima" (6).The authors are affiliated with the department of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.edited by Margaret G. Spinelli, M.D.; Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., 2003, 300 pages, $49.95

Psychological aspects of perinatal loss.

Parents are attached to their unborn children, and loss around the time of birth is a serious trauma. Parental grief is a normal response, and may last for many months. Clinicians have always sought to implement practices that will help recovery, and for a generation, have advocated that parents have contact with the body of their dead infant, believing that this will facilitate mourning. Review of the literature shows that no previous systematic evidence has ever been offered to support this practice. Recent research throws doubt on the therapeutic value of the practice of encouraging contact with the dead infant. These findings are outlined and discussed. Following an outline of what is already known about the psychological effects of perinatal loss, the paper focuses on the evidence that aspects of psychosocial management are associated with better outcomes. It goes on to describe the cultural context in which psychosocial management changed and parents were first encouraged to see and handle their dead infant, and explores the distinction between the medical and cultural models which may frame this behaviour in very different ways. Finally, it briefly discusses the ethical position of staff who advise parents about their choice to see or not see their infant's body.

Research on dead infants.

This paper examines the ethical problems that arise when research is carried out after autopsy on dead infants. It compares the right of parents against that of the public interest in matters of research on dead minors. The basis for the respect that is widely accorded to the body of a dead person is examined and is shown to ground the parental interest. A discussion of the nature of the family suggests that 'informed consent' is not the best term to apply to the process of parental consultation. Some reasons are provided against using this term in the context in which bereaved parents are consulted about autopsy and research on their dead infants. It is suggested that a term such as 'authorize' might better apply to this situation.

Assessment of guidelines for good practice in psychosocial care of mothers after stillbirth: a cohort study.

Most maternity units have good practice protocols, advising that after stillbirth parents should be encouraged to see and hold their dead infant. Our aim was to assess whether adherence to these protocols is associated with measurably beneficial effects on the psychological health of mother and next-born child. This study forms part of a wider case-control study of the psychological effects of stillbirth. We identified 65 women in the pregnancy after stillbirth, and enrolled matched controls for 60 of them. Outcome measures included depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) in pregnancy and 1 year after the next birth, and disorganised attachment behaviour in the next-born infant. Comparison variables included seeing and holding the stillborn infant, having a funeral, and keeping mementoes. Behaviours that promote contact with the stillborn infant were associated with worse outcome. Women who had held their stillborn infant were more depressed than those who only saw the infant, while those who did not see the infant were least likely to be depressed (13 of 33, 39%, vs three of 14, 21%, vs one of 17, 6%; p=0.03). Women who had seen their stillborn infant had greater anxiety (p=0.02) and higher symptoms of PTSD than those who had not (p=0.02), and their next-born infants were more likely to show disorganised attachment behaviour (18 of 43, 42%, vs one of 12, 8%, p=0 x 04). Having a funeral and keeping mementoes were not associated with further adverse outcomes, but small numbers limited interpretation. Our findings do not support good-practice guidelines, which state that failure to see and hold the dead child could have adverse effects on parents' mourning.

Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance

Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance, by David Frankfurter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi + 315. $49.50. Late antique has usually served as a backdrop against which other things could be charted: the emergence of Christianity or the nature of Roman imperialism, for example. Frankfurter takes what is still a relatively untrodden path and instead studies late antique from the inside out, so to speak. By focusing on changes in practices between about 100 and 600 C.E. Frankfurter examines how Egyptian responded to the changing circumstances-political, cultural, economic, and clerical-- in which it found itself The resulting book is rich in information that has been largely overlooked by historians of late antique Mediterranean religions and provocative in its use of theoretical models drawn from cultures as distant from the shores of the Nile as rural South America. The theoretical model to which Frankfurter returns most often is Robert Redfield's tradition-little tradition, which Redfield first developed to study the ways in which Christianity (a tradition, i.e., one espoused by the educated and more urbanized populace) and pre-Christian, indigenous practices of the Yucatan (which constituted a little tradition, i.e., one found predominantly in rural areas) affected one another. Similarly, Frankfurter is interested in the tensions between Christianity and pre-Christian Egyptian practices. Although he examines both the centrifugal forces, which drew people away from the urban centers where Christianity could be found, and the centripetal forces, which drove them away from villages toward urban centers, he is particularly interested in the former, and over the course of the book portrays late antique as centered in the individual, the family, or the small group-a portrayal by which I am persuaded, and which, moreover, I think holds true for many other cultures. To be niggling for a moment, I wish that Frankfurter had done more comparing of late antique to its Mediterranean neighbors in this respect. Contrary to his statement that Egypt itself was different from other Mediterranean cultures that underwent great social and political changes in the Roman period (p. 7), he could have extended his analyses by placing, for instance, the Egyptian rejection of nationally integrated worship of a deity and tendency toward multiple regional shrines alongside of our evidence for regional shrines in ancient Greece. Another thesis to which Frankfurter returns throughout is that religion in ancient and peasant societies is nothing if not the active negotiation of life (p. 9), and some of the most interesting parts of the book demonstrate this, A good example is his discussion of the metamorphosis of the god Bes from a rather humble tutelary deity of pregnant women and babies to a postmortem protector of dead infants, thence to a protector of the dead Osiris and finally, from there, into a famous oracular god, replacing Osiris himself at Abydos's Memnonion (pp. 124ff. and pp. 169ff.). The chain of logic uniting these evolutionary steps is not altogether clear, as Frankfurter acknowledges, but the fact that it happened is fascinating nonetheless. …

Childbirth: Expectations, choices, and trends

Over the past few years information and knowledge about the psychological aspects of intrauterine fetal death prenatal diagnosis and fear of childbirth has increased substantially. This has led to the changing of attitudes among health personnel and parents in these areas. Among obstetricians there is an increased knowledge and awareness of the different phases of the grief process and most clinics have established routines to assist grieving parents. In the context of increased knowledge of psychology and ethics in the field of prenatal diagnosis efforts are being made to tackle issues surrounding screening through continuing discussions in the public arena and among professionals. Moreover womens autonomy and their right to decide the mode of their delivery is a third area where attitudes are changing. Many women suffer extreme fear of childbirth which they may associate with pain death and loss of control. The ongoing dialogue about technical and scientific development and the application of new methods in clinical practice in this field must be continued.

Failure to exclusively breastfeed and the risk of early infant mortality due to infectious disease in poor communities in Lima, Peru.

This case-control study was conducted to determine the relationship between feeding practices (and living conditions) and the risk of early infant mortality in a poor urban population in Lima Peru. Using the Epi-info 6.4 software a total of 236 records of dead infants due to infectious diseases were reviewed and only 135 were analyzed. Overall this study showed that failure to breast-feed (especially when not exclusively) during the first months and the living conditions of poor single-parent mothers greatly increase the risk of infant mortality due to infectious diseases. For both case and control groups the introduction of liquid supplements was a common practice but for infants who died the practice started much earlier. Results of this study support the view that current infant feeding practices remain an important cause of early infant deaths among poor urban families.

Reactions to Dead Bodies of Conspecifics by Wild Chimpanzees in the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania

Various reactions to dead conspecifics by Mahale chimpanzees have been observed. Reactions were classified into whether the dead conspecific was an infant or adult.The extreme persistence of one mother who carried her dead infant for about 4 months was noted. Infant-carrying may be prolonged if the dead infants desiccates and becomes mummified, thus clearing the stage of putrefaction. Most mothers may abandon their infants after death due to swarming flies around the corpse and bad smells. Non-mothers generally paid no attention to dead infants but some adult males inspected and tried to snatch them away, possibly motivated by cannibalism. One juvenile female was observed to engage in imaginative play with a mummified infant. An adult female carried and cradled the dried forearm of a red colobus for some days, traveling together with another adult female carrying her mummified infant.Reactions of chimpanzees to adult conspecific corpses may well be explained in terms of conflicts between approach and avoidance. If approach surpasses avoidance, they will go near bodies and inspect by sniffing, gazing, and sometimes touching. If avoidance surpasses approach, they will climb into nearby trees and rest on branches or day-beds sometimes looking down to see bodies. It has been proposed that vocalizations of wraa calls and huu calls express a combination of emotions such as fear and agitation. Several factors such as state of decomposition and cause of death may increase fear together with curiosity. Females and immatures tended to show more fear than adult males. Some adult males conducted intimidation displays upon encountering dead bodies. They may utilize such unusual situations for bluffing effect. Interestingly, chimpanzees sometimes behave similarly towards the corpses of other mammals. This is noteworthy as non-ape primates such as vervets are reported to pay no attention to ungulates killed by leopards. It is plausible that broad curiosity in chimpanzees is applied to obtaining useful knowledge about their surroundings, such as presence of predators, though their intentions are not so specialized.

Epidemiologic characteristics of kidney malformations.

Infants with kidney agenesis or dysgenesis, infants with cystic kidneys, and infants with horseshoe kidneys were studied, based on data from three large and population-based congenital malformation registers: a total of 2666 infants among 5.83 million births. There is a strong variability between programs of the rates of registered unilateral kidney malformations and these are strongly over-represented in dead infants or infants with other malformations. There is a male excess but this varies in strength between different types of kidney malformations and between bilateral and unilateral forms. An increased twinning rate was found. The different types of kidney malformation differed with respect to kind of associated non-urological malformations in multimalformed infants. We conclude that for monitoring purposes one should restrict analysis to bilateral forms but that unilateral forms can be of interest in epidemiological analyses.

Thinking about and working with depressed mothers in the early months of their infant's life

This paper illustrates how my work has developed over the years and informed my thinking about, and work with, depressed mothers. It also describes the work of the Parent Infant Foundation in Sydney where pregnant women and mothers with infants and toddlers are seen in groups and individually through home visits. The relevance of the support of a peer group when doing such difficult work is described. The paper draws on a central theme: the depressed mother, returning to her own infant beginnings through pregnancy and birth, confronts a dead mother-dead infant dyad. Trauma from the mother's own infancy is seen to have created an internal, autistic, deadened, psychic space. It is argued that behind this deadness lies the primeval pain of abandonment and loss. The associated rage, previously repressed but now awakened by her alive infant and his powerful primitive demands, invade the mother's psyche. The internal deadness freezes her alive processes as mother to her baby. Unbearable pain is awakened - and she may be in terror and unable to move, or she may experience herself as drowning in something catastrophic. SUMMARY This paper illustrates how my work has developed over the

Serious maternal morbidity after childbirth: prolonged hospital stays and readmissions

Objective: To determine the frequency of and risk factors for serious morbidity resulting in a prolonged hospital stay or readmission among women enrolled in Tennessee’s Medicaid program who delivered live or dead infants in 1991. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included 33,251 women of white or black ethnicity. Main outcome measures included childbirth-related medical conditions serious enough to result in death, prolonged delivery hospitalization, or readmission within 60 days of delivery. Results: Among 25,810 women with vaginal (78%) and 7441 (22%) women with cesarean deliveries, 2.6% and 8.9%, respectively, had at least one childbirth-related medical condition requiring prolonged delivery hospitalization or readmission, including infection (1.8% and 7.9%), hypertension-related complications (0.7% and 2.0%), or hemorrhage (0.5% and 2.4%). After controlling for other risk factors, maternal age over 32 years was independently associated with increased rate of serious morbidity among women who had vaginal (relative risk [RR] 1.9, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.4, 2.7) or cesarean deliveries (RR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1, 2.2). Black women had approximately twice the rate of maternal morbidity with vaginal (RR 1.9, 95% CI 1.5, 2.4) or cesarean deliveries (RR 2.3, 95% CI 1.9, 2.9). Primiparous women who had vaginal or cesarean deliveries had a 60% (RR 1.6, 95% CI 1.3, 2.0) and 70% (RR 1.7, 95% CI 1.4, 2.0), respectively, greater risk of serious maternal morbidity than women with 1–3 prior births. Conclusion: Predictors of serious maternal morbidity included age over 32 years, black ethnicity, and primiparity.

<Article> Deceptive Tactic by an Adult Male Chimpanzee to Snatch a Dead Infant from its Mother.

<Article> Deceptive Tactic by an Adult Male Chimpanzee to Snatch a Dead Infant from its Mother.

NICE, a new cause of death classification for stillbirths and neonatal deaths. Neonatal and Intrauterine Death Classification according to Etiology

Stillbirths and neonatal deaths are often the result of a complicated chain of events. For epidemiological purposes a classification into single cause of death groups is essential. For large-scale studies, a method is needed which enables such grouping based on available register data. A cause of death classification system called NICE is presented. It is hierarchical and is aetiologically orientated. A computerized method is adapted which makes use of data in four central Swedish registries. A validation of the computer method has been made from the medical records on a 10% sample of all stillbirths and neonatally dead infants in Sweden from 1983 to 1990. The specificity of the computer method is high, sensitivity is less satisfactory for some subgroups. A time trend analysis illustrates the usefulness of the classification system and shows a decline with time for two groups: placental abruption and obstetric complications. The NICE classification system fulfils the criteria of an aetiologically orientated classification system which can be used in a computerized environment.

Associated malformations in infants and fetuses with upper or lower neural tube defects

The paper describes associated malformations in infants born with neural tube defects (N = 3,809) from three large malformation registers and in fetuses aborted because of a diagnosed neural tube defect (N = 748) from two of the registers. In infants, upper spina bifida and encephalocele are more often associated with non-neural malformations than anencephaly or lower spina bifida. Aborted fetuses with spina bifida or encephalocele have associated malformations registered more often than infants with those neural tube defects, but the opposite is true for anencephaly. The degree of detail of the investigation of an aborted specimen or a perinatally dead infant will contribute to such differences but they can also depend on the fact that prenatal detection may be facilitated by the simultaneous presence of other malformations like body wall defects. Also, fetuses with many malformations may be more prone to abort spontaneously late in pregnancy. Variable prenatal diagnosis may, therefore, explain population differences in the pattern of associated malformations. The type of associated malformation differs with the level of the neural tube defect: this could be due to different causal mechanisms or be a question of cranio-caudal level and/or timing. For limb reduction defects, however, we did not find any association between upper limb and upper neural tube defects or lower limb and lower neural tube defects. These findings together with other epidemiological data support the idea that upper and lower neural tube defects may have different significance in epidemiological studies and should be treated separately. Teratology 57:56–63, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.