Maternal Impressions Research Articles

Long-Term Outcome of Neonates and Infants whose Mothers Tested Positive for SARS-CoV-2 during Pregnancy - a Pilot of the Post-CRONOS Project.

Long-term effects on infants of mothers with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy are increasingly discussed in the literature. Besides potential neurodevelopment impairments after intrauterine SARS-CoV-2 exposure, there might be differences in the postnatal pediatric care of those children, like the timing of preventive medical examinations (PME) or vaccinations. In this first national long-term follow-up study of women included in the CRONOS registry, we describe maternal impressions of their child´s development and the prevalence of regulatory disorders, and we analyze the timing of PMEs and vaccinations. 773 women who were enrolled between April 3, 2020, and August 24, 2021, in the CRONOS registry were eligible to be contacted by the study coordinators and asked to fill out a web-based questionnaire. 110/773 (14%) women completed the questionnaire. Their children were between the ages of 12 and 31 months (median 20 months). All mothers were satisfied with their child´s development, milestones were achieved in a timely fashion. The reported prevalence for excessive crying, sleeping, and feeding disorders was 11%, 18-32%, and 7%, respectively. PMEs were mostly not delayed, but only 54% of infants received their first vaccination within their first 60 days of life. In summary, our exploratory findings suggest that developmental milestones in infancy are reached in time after maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy. However, there are effects on the implementation of PMEs and vaccinations. EINFüHRUNG: In der Literatur werden zunehmend potenzielle Langzeitfolgen für Säuglinge nach intrauteriner SARS-CoV-2-Exposition diskutiert. Neben möglichen Beeinträchtigungen der neurologischen Entwicklung können Unterschiede in der pädiatrischen postnatalen Betreuung bei diesen Kindern z. B. bei der Durchführung von Vorsorgeuntersuchungen (sog. U´s) oder Impfungen bestehen. In dieser ersten nationalen Langzeit-Follow-up-Studie aus dem CRONOS-Register beschreiben wir mütterliche Eindrücke zur Entwicklung ihres Kindes, sowie die Prävalenz von Regulationsstörungen. Wir analysieren den Zeitpunkt von U´s und Impfungen. 773 Frauen, die zwischen dem 03.04.2020 und dem 24.08.2021 in CRONOS aufgenommen wurden, wurden von den Studienkoordinatoren kontaktiert und gebeten, einen webbasierten Fragebogen auszufüllen. 110/773 (14%) Frauen füllten den Fragebogen aus, ihre Kinder waren zwischen 12 und 31 Monate alt (Median 20 Monate). Alle Mütter waren mit der Entwicklung ihres Kindes zufrieden, Meilensteine der Entwicklung wurden zeitgerecht erreicht. Die berichtete Prävalenz für exzessives Schreien, Schlaf- und Fütterstörungen betrug 11%, 18-32% bzw. 7%. U´s wurden meist zeitgerecht durchgeführt, aber nur 54% der Säuglinge erhielten ihre erste Impfung innerhalb der ersten 60 Lebenstage. Zusammenfassend deuten unsere explorativen Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass Entwicklungsmeilensteine im Säuglingsalter nach mütterlicher SARS-CoV-2-Infektion in der Schwangerschaft rechtzeitig erreicht werden. Es zeigen sich jedoch Auswirkungen auf die Durchführung von Vorsorgen und Impfungen.

Agreement Between Alberta Infant Motor Scale Assessment and Maternal Perception of Motor Development in Full-Term Infants

ABSTRACT Objectives To verify the agreement between the Alberta Infant Motor Scale assessment and maternal perception of the motor development in full-term infants. Methods This is a cross-sectional study involving 161 infants and mothers. Children were assessed with the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) for motor developmental classification. Mothers completed questionnaires aiming to identify maternal profiles and impressions about their children’s development. The kappa test was used to analyze the concordance between AIMS and mother perceptions. Results A total of 83.2% of the sample was classified as typically developing and 16.8% as suspected or delayed development. The maternal impression indicates that 77% of infants are developing typically, 19.9% perceived their infants’ development as advanced, and 3.1% delayed development. There was low agreement between the mothers’ perceptions and AIMS classifications (kappa = 0.153) Conclusions Maternal perception of their infant’s development was unsatisfactory for evaluation of motor development because their perceptions did not agree with the findings of the AIMS.

On the question of embodying maternal impressions in the bud

One striking example of the influence of the spirit on the body will be those organic stigmata that are caused by verbal suggestion in hypnosis. Up to six times I myself had to get redness and blisters in such cases [1]), and this experiment was successfully repeated by my student, Dr. DA Smirnov in Moscow (1-7). The process proceeded in front of the witnesses present for several hours. The maturation of the blisters passed through the usual stages of 2nd degree burns, i.e., the whole complex of clinical symptoms of inflammation was present.

Maternal Impressions of the New 2019 Canadian Food Guide Snapshot

This qualitative study explored the impressions of pregnant Canadian women toward Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) snapshot released in January 2019. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 physically active pregnant women. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Three themes emerged: (i) pregnancy changes what I eat; (ii) what is healthy to me? and (iii) a connection with people and food. Pregnancy was the primary factor influencing dietary changes, and messages in the snapshot reinforced some dietary behaviours that participants had already incorporated. Participants wanted information specific to pregnancy but were not aware of available resources pertaining to nutrition on existing websites. Dietitians and other health care professionals should take steps to raise awareness of and ensure wider dissemination of reliable resources on healthy eating during pregnancy including Canada’s Food Guide website.

From Maternal Impressions to Eugenics: Pregnancy and Inheritance in the Nineteenth-Century U.S.

This essay examines the theory of maternal impressions, the belief that a woman's experiences or emotions during pregnancy could explain congenital disability or emotional/ behavior differences in her child and asks why this theory circulated as an explanation for disability seen at birth by both medical doctors and in literature for far longer than it did across the Atlantic. By presenting examples from nineteenth-century medical literature, popular fiction, maternal handbooks, and two canonical works of literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave, I argue that maternal impressions worked to maintain anxiety for women, and particular white women, to ensure they felt responsible if anything was "wrong" with their child. Ultimately, I show how maternal impressions was both an ableist and racialized understanding of inheritance that wouldn't be discarded until the emergence of eugenics in the early twentieth century.

Influence of the mother on the fetus

The influence of maternal impressions on the fetus has long been subjected to ridicule and belonged to the "woman's tales". However, in recent times, this issue is again gaining scientific interest, and since a scientific solution to it is probably not yet close, it is necessary, at least according to Ballantyn's opinion, to prove that this influence really exists.

Oral health of neonates: mothers’ perception of lingual frenotomy performed in a university hospital

ABSTRACT Objective: The study sought to know mothers’ perception of neonates on lingual frenotomy performed by a dental care program of a university hospital in Paraná Methods: It is a descriptive research with a qualitative approach, developed with mothers of newborns and whose children were submitted to a lingual frenzy procedure during maternal hospitalization (n = 09). Data were collected through a focus group interview and analyzed according to the content analysis technique Results: It was identified five thematic nuclei linked to lingual frenotomy in infants: ‘maternal impressions agaisnt the professional indication’; ‘Family trial’; ‘Need to perform frenotomy’; ‘Feelings after the completion of the frenotomy’; ‘Changes in baby behavior’. The main maternal impressions were linked to fear and suffering related to the babies reaction. Regarding to the need to perform the lingual frenotomy, the intrinsic opinions were initially divergent, however, all evidenced that the procedure was indispensable for the baby, mainly for speech. After the frenotomy completion, the mothers reported well-being for the improvement in the lingual physiology and babies’ quality of life, with emphasis on breastfeeding and improvement in the baby’s behavior Conclusion: The results obtained are encouraging for the hospital managers to consider, in their clinical protocols, the technique of lingual frenotomy in newborns, with a view to facilitating mothers’ access to the procedure, qualifying breastfeeding and consequently expanding the maternal and child bond.

Maternal Impressions of the New 2019 Canadian Food Guide

Background: Canada’s new food guide was released on January 2019 followingits predecessor Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide released in 2007. Major changes in the new food guide included a partitioned plate of realfoods, messages around healthy eating being more than the foods you eat, and no feature of the milk and alternatives group. There were also no recommended servings for age groups or developmental stages including pregnant women.
 Objective: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of pregnant Canadian women toward the new Canada food guide.Methods: Eight pregnant women over the age of eighteen were recruited from facilities that offered prenatal fitness. Interviews included documenting impressions of the Canada food guide, dietary choices during pregnancy and planned dietary changes. The interviews were digitally recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Braun and Clarke thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: All the participants were familiar with Canada food guides and all but three were aware of the newest version. Participants commented that the new food guide was appealing and healthy. Most participants had already madechanges to their daily diet that coincidentally corresponded to the new food guide. Many also followed the messages in the new food guide but reported that pregnancy was the main influence for food changes. Participants included more fruits and vegetables, and less meat than when they were not pregnant.The internet, family, physicians and previous knowledge were also used to inform food choices. Much of this information was however reported as too little and contradictory. Participants wanted information more specific to pregnant women which was not included in the new food guide.Conclusions: Canada’s new food guide reinforced actions that women were already taking to improve their diet during pregnancy. The new food guide offers broad recommendations for Canadians to follow but pregnant women prefer a guide that is specific with clear recommendations for pregnant women.

The Secrets of Generation: Reproduction in the Long Eighteenth Century ed. by Raymond Stephanson and Darren N. Wagner

Reviewed by: The Secrets of Generation: Reproduction in the Long Eighteenth Century ed. by Raymond Stephanson and Darren N. Wagner Amelia Dale The Secrets of Generation: Reproduction in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. Raymond Stephanson and Darren N. Wagner. Toronto: Toronto, 2015. Pp. xviii + 560. $90. The Secrets of Generation is a landmark edited collection that looks at reproduction (human, animal, botanical) in the long eighteenth century from a wealth of different disciplinary standpoints, with contributors working across English, art history, medical history, and gender studies, examining a transnational long eighteenth century that spans Italy, Germany, England, and America. The twenty-two chapters are grouped into four thematic sections. Beginning with the theme “Generation, Species, Breeding,” the volume opens with an ambitious chapter by Staffan Müller-Wille that uses the history of botanical gardens design as a starting point for tracking the emergence of biology as a discipline. The next subsection—”Fetus, Child, Mother”—turns to maternity and includes Corinna Wagner’s forceful reading of legal and medical responses to maternal violence alongside the sentimentalization of maternity. “Pathologies, Body Parts, Display” focuses on the anatomized body in medical history—a concern displayed throughout the collection—and the book closes with “Attitudes, Tropes, Satire,” which looks at reproduction as it is figured in print culture. These subsections are inevitably loose and overlapping. All contributions taken together, The Secrets of Generation provides an impressive picture of the vastness and interconnectedness of eighteenth-century conceptualizations of “generation,” life, and the sexed body. With essays touching on Carl Linnaeus’s flower beds, asexual reproduction, entrails, incest, infanticide, lactation, and hysteria, the collection describes how the fabrication of reproductive knowledge in the eighteenth century structured, and was structured by, competing political, religious, and cultural forces. As the length of The Secrets of Generation prevents detailing all the chapters, I will briefly discuss here some of the contributions, with an eye to the early eighteenth-century remit and British focus of the Scriblerian. A highlight of the strong “Pathologies, Body Parts, Display” section is Lianne McTavish’s account of the importance of intestinal parasites within eighteenth-century formulations of reproduction. This essay on wormy entrails is followed by Darren N. Wagner’s examination of the construction and consumption of anatomical displays of male genitals. Mr. Wagner argues—aided by illustrations of “Inflated and dry’d,” pinned and two-toned dyed penises—that eighteenth-century anatomical culture consistently blurred the medical and the erotic, the educative and the sensational. He also makes a persuasive case for rereading the phallic [End Page 73] syringe (such as Tristram Shandy’s “squirt”) in eighteenth-century print. With syringes used in artificial insemination and penile inflation they become more than just figurative phalluses: they become sexual and reproductive devices. Immersion in eighteenth-century medico-bawdy is also provided by Donald W. Nichol’s essay on The Foundling Hospital for Wit (1743–1749) and The New Foundling Hospital for Wit (1768–1773). Mr. Nichol offers not so much an overarching argument but rather a whirlwind tour of bawdy quotable highlights from the two works, such as: “Hail pighog! by whose potent aid/My L–d his health had, and employ! /My L–y too was brought to bed /Heav’n bless it! of a chopping boy.” While much has been written about “monstrous births” and theories of maternal impressions, David M. Turner’s contribution uses disability studies to take a fresh approach to this topic, and examines how accounts of “defective” children contributed to broader understandings of physical difference. Eighteenth-century concerns with monstrous births take on new, political resonances when read as reflecting preoccupations with child health and the awareness of population strength as a national resource. Something like Mary Toft’s rabbit-birth becomes no longer a remnant of earlier, fading superstitions (as per the standard reading) but shadowed by the rise of eugenics in the nineteenth century. Similarly helpful is Sally Frampton’s examination of the ovarian pathology. Ms. Frampton details eighteenth-century reactions to growths in dropsical ovaries (bones, teeth and hair) and the blurring between swollen ovaries and pregnancy in eighteenth-century medicine: between the physiology and pathology of the organ. Ms. Frampton’s work is...

Rivalidade fraterna durante a gestação materna do segundo filho: manifestações e estratégias de manejo

A rivalidade fraterna pode ser considerada uma experiência normal para as crianças. O presente estudo investigou as impressões maternas sobre a rivalidade fraterna expressa pelos primogênitos durante a gestação do segundo filho. Participaram do estudo 24 gestantes de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, que se encontravam no último trimestre de gestação e que possuíam um filho com idade entre dois a seis anos. Através de análise de conteúdo qualitativa, com base em uma entrevista semi-estruturada, chamou atenção a vasta presença de relatos de rivalidade fraterna. Esta manifestou-se através de ataques dirigidos ao irmão ou à barriga da mãe, do medo de perder o amor/atenção dos progenitores, e do medo de ter o seu espaço pessoal invadido. Como estratégias para lidar com a rivalidade, ao mesmo tempo em que se identificavam com os bebês, os primogênitos buscavam diferenciar-se destes, menosprezando suas capacidades. No que tange às mães, buscavam ensinar o primogênito a dividir, além de preservá-lo de sentimentos de ciúmes.

Florence Marryat’s Female Vampire and the Scientizing of Hybridity

This essay relates the titular character of Florence Marryat’s 1897 novel, The Blood of the Vampire , to other sexual/racial hybrids of the nineteenth century such as Charlotte Brontë’s Bertha Mason and Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Elsie Venner. Marryat draws upon pseudoscientific theories of “maternal impressions” to create Harriet Brandt, a female vampire whose depiction might not have been out of place in contemporary medical journals such as The Lancet . Her sympathetic and realistic portrait of Harriet exposes the instabilities in fin-de-siècle thinking about race, gender, and species.

'Offspring of his Genius': Coleridge's Pregnant Metaphors and Metamorphic Pregnancies

'Offspring of his Genius':Coleridge's Pregnant Metaphors and Metamorphic Pregnancies Kiran Toor One might make a very amusing Allegory of an embryo Soul up to Birth! – Try! it is promising! Coleridge, Notebooks , ii. 2373 1 In October 1726, Mary Toft of Godalming in Surrey reportedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits. Toft claimed that during her pregnancy she had been startled by a rabbit in a field and that the experience had so forcefully impressed her thoughts thereafter that it subsequently deformed the child in her womb.2 Of course,the incident was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax, but not before many of London's most eminent physicians were thoroughly taken in by it. In the early eighteenth century, the phenomenon of maternal impressions emerged out of therealm of folklore and into a central topic of embryological discussion, owing primarily toa high profile dispute between two membersof the Royal College of Surgeons in London, namely Daniel Turner and James Blondel. In this essay, I would like to examine this dispute and to suggest how many of the issues that ensued from the two competing theories of generation became a submerged analogy for poetic creativity, and how Samuel Taylor Coleridge in particular might be said to have appropriated and crystallized many of the key issues of eighteenth-century embryology into his theory of imagination. I Mary Toft's claim, while certainly laughable on the face of it, riveted the attention of much of London. In his detailed account of the peculiar circumstances surrounding Toft's case and the public's willingness to believe it, Dennis Todd in Imagining Monsters: Miscreations of the Self in Eighteenth-Century England writes: 'the infinite Crowds that pressed around Toft were comprised of a number of intelligent, educated people […] many of them in fact trained in medicine, and they believed the truth of Mary Toft's account or at least were unwilling to set aside her claim without carefully considering it first' (Todd, 2). Toft's case was not the first to incite controversy over whether a pregnant woman's emotions, cravings, or imaginings could mark or deform her foetus. In fact, the eighteenth century was heir to a wide currency of such reports. Beginning with Aristotle and then Galen, the idea presented itself throughout the Renaissance obstetrics of Marsilio Ficino, Ambroise Paré, Paracelsus, Michel de Montaigne, even René Descartes.3 The concept of maternal imprinting, or 'maternal impressions' as it was more often known, held that the maternal imaginationat the time of conception or at any moment during pregnancy, be it influenced by something the mother dreamt or saw, played a particular role in shaping the foetus. The marks caused by the imagination ranged from [End Page 257] relatively common and insignificant birthmarks to more grossly disordered morphologies and monstrous births. In his 1573 treatise, Des Monstres et Prodiges, practicing surgeon Ambroise Paré compiled one of the most extensive anthologies of such cases from history. In one report, a woman suffering from a fever was advised to hold a live frog in her hand until it died. Retiring to bed with the frog and submitting to the embraces of her husband with the frog still tightly grasped, the woman gave birth nine months later to a baby with the face of a frog.4 Similar accounts were produced of mothers being terrified by fish or lobster and thereby producing scaly children; or incidents of alarm at seeing a bear or ape causing the mother to give birth to unusually hairy offspring. One case, purportedly witnessed by Hippocrates, bore testimony to a child 'as black as a moor' delivered of white parents as the result of the mother's intent viewing of a picture of an Ethiopian that hung in her bedchamber throughout her pregnancy (Paré, 38). Countless other instances were cited in which a pregnant woman's longing for certain food was believed to leave a birthmark in the shape of that food on the skin of the child. The sheer volume of this literature was immense, and while one may hasten to relegate the strange hold of maternal impressions to the quaint gullibility of an earlier age...

Maternal Impressions. Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory

Maternal Impressions. Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory

Early Reactions to Frustration: Developmental Trends in Anger, Individual Response Styles, and Caregiving Risk Implications in Infancy

In an effort to examine early negative emotional response patterns, infant responses to frustration were studied with specific regard to anger. Forty infants, 7-9 months (n = 20) and 12-14 months (n = 20) old, were observed in laboratory play situations. Infant affective response as well as maternal behavior were observed. Maternal interviews assessed maternal impressions of infant behavior and affect. Findings revealed increased displays of anger in older infants, evidence of cognitive-affective linkages in response, and individual differences in emotional response style and maternal-infant processes. Findings relate to the emergence and interplay of negative emotional response, maternal-infant patterns, and socioemotional risk.

Maternal Impressions: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory (review)

Maternal Impressions: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory (review)

Book Review: Maternal Impressions: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory

Book Review: Maternal Impressions: Pregnancy and Childbirth in Literature and Theory

Maternal impressions

In the early 18th century, a London woman named Mary Toft claimed that she gave birth to rabbits: not one or two but 16 or 17, over several months—and many people believed her. Her explanation was that, when working in the fields while pregnant, she spotted a rabbit that she wanted to eat. Unable to catch it, she dreamed nightly of rabbit, but to no avail, until she started to produce them. As the Rabbit Woman, Toft is still a footnote to medical history. Her case stimulated a vigorous debate in medical and scientific circles, since intense maternal impressions had long been implicated in various congenital abnormalities.

Maternal impressions of forceps or the Silc‐cup

Maternal impressions of forceps or the Silc‐cup

Down Syndrome Temperament: The Stereotype at Middle Childhood and Adolescence

MOTHERS AND TEACHERS of 94 children (53 boys) with Down syndrome, between 8 and 14 years of age, rated the children on a temperament scale and provided an overall impression as to whether the child was difficult in comparison with other children. Maternal ratings on the Middle Childhood Questionnaire showed significant differences from standardization scores. Children with Down syndrome were given ratings as less active, more predictable, of more positive mood, less persistent, and more distractible. Some of these dimensions favour the amiable personality stereotype for the syndrome but low persistence was associated with maternal impressions of difficulty. There was little agreement between mothers and teachers regarding the individual children who were rated as being significantly easier or more difficult than other children. Results with a subgroup (n = 32) showed that externalizing behaviours were significantly related to both mother and teacher impressions of difficulty and that mothers also found in...

MONTAIGNE ON MATERNAL IMPRESSIONS AS A CAUSE OF CONGENITAL MALFORMATIONS

Michel Eyquem Montaigne (1533-1592), the brilliant essayist and skeptic, believed that maternal impressions could cause congenital malformations. In his essay, "On the Power of Imagination," written between 1572 and 1574, he gave the following reasons why he accepted this belief.1 Sometimes, however, one's imagination acts not only against one's own body, but against someone else's. And just as a body passes on its sickness to its neighbor, as is seen in the plague, the pox, and soreness of the eyes, which are transmitted from one body to the other—likewise the imagination when vehemently stirred, launches darts that can injure an external object. The ancients maintained that certain women of Scythia, when animated and enraged against anyone, would kill him with their mere glance.... We know by experience that women transmit marks of their fancies to the bodies of the children they carry in their womb.... There was presented to Charles, king of Bohemia and Emperor, a girl from near Pisa, all hairy and bristly, who her mother said had been thus conceived because of a picture of Saint John the Baptist hanging by her bed. With animals it is the same: witness Jacob's sheep.