Maternal Strategies Research Articles

Maternal Media Use and Infant Media Exposure are Associated with Developmental Outcomes at 4 and 8 Months

SYNOPSIS Objective. Early screen exposure is associated with poorer attention, inhibitory control, and language development outcomes. However, the content and context of media exposure are better predictors of outcomes than overall amount. The present study evaluated whether infants’ digital media exposure and maternal digital media use were concurrently and longitudinally associated with infant development in 187 infants at 4 and 8 months. Design. Mothers completed a questionnaire on family media exposure in different contexts, the short form of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories, and the Developmental Profile 3. A series of multiple linear regressions was performed to investigate associations between media use and infant development in the socioemotional, communicative and cognitive domains. Results. Positive maternal strategies such as using media for educating and amusing the infant were positively associated with socioemotional development at 4 months of age; time dedicated to reading books with the infant (either electronic or paper books) and using screens to communicate were positively associated with infant communicative and socioemotional development at 8 months of age. Mothers’ overall usage of media and use of digital media during childhood routines, as well as the time infants spent daily on a device at 4 and 8 months of age, were associated with lower emerging socioemotional and communicative skills. Conclusions. Findings highlight the potentially positive and negative impacts of very early digital media exposure and could have public health significance.

Patterns of lexical and syntactic adjustment in early infant-directed speech related to language development in Hungarian

ABSTRACT Infant-directed speech (IDS) is known to be characterised by phonetic and prosodic cues along with reduced vocabulary and syntax compared to adult-directed speech (ADS). However, there is considerable variation between mothers in the degree of lexical and syntactic reduction of their IDS. The present study aims to investigate the correspondences of the inter-individual variation of maternal IDS at 6 and 18 months with infants’ language development at 18 months. 109 dyads of mothers and their firstborn infants participated in the study. Mothers’ ID and AD storytelling based on standard picture stimuli were recorded at 6 and 18 months of their infants’ age. We analysed measures of speech quantity (number of utterances and words), syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance), and lexical diversity (type-token ratio). Language growth was measured bimonthly using the Hungarian adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates CDI W&G form. The results did not reveal any association between characteristics of mothers’ ID narratives and their infants’ concurrent language skills at 18 months. However, we found a longitudinal link between a distinct pattern of linguistic simplification in maternal ID storytelling at 6 months and the development of expressive vocabulary in infants at 18 months. Infants whose mother tends to reduce both lexical and syntactic complexity of ID narratives the most are more likely to exhibit higher language outcomes. Further research is warranted to explore the background factors and longer-term effects of this maternal strategy.

Mother-child engagement in a categorisation activity: implications for parental pedagogy and early education research

ABSTRACT Maternal support for children's cognitive competence has received considerable attention in the developmental and early childhood education literature. However, little research has examined the link between maternal behaviour and children’s categorisation performance. The current study explored the strategies that mothers and children used as they engaged in a categorisation task. Twenty-seven mother–child dyads from middle-class mothers and their three-to-five-year-old preschool children were videotaped while engaging in a categorisation activity. Total testing time, including video recordings, did not exceed one hour. The mother-child interaction codes were analysed using frequency analyses to extract empirical estimates. Certain maternal strategies (e.g. interrogative strategies) were positively related to children’s verbal responses. However, maternal stylistic (taxonomic and thematic) differences were not associated with children’s strategies. The study found that mothers use a variety of strategies to engage with their children in the categorisation activity. Theoretical perspectives and implications of the current research for parental pedagogy and early childhood education research are discussed.

Relationship between acoustic traits of protesting cries of domestic kittens (Felis catus) and their individual chances for survival

Domestic cat (Felis catus) mothers may rely on offspring cries to allocate resources in use of individuals with greater chances for survival and sacrifice the weak ones in case of impossibility to raise the entire large litter. Potential victims of this maternal strategy can enhance their chances of survival, by producing vocalizations with traits mimicking those of higher-quality offspring. We compared acoustic traits of 4990 cries produced during blood sampling by 57 two-week-old captive feral kittens (28 males, 29 females); 47 of them survived to 90 days of age and 10 died by reasons not related to traumas or aggression. No relationship was found between acoustic parameters and kitten survival, however, positive relationship was found between survival and body weight. The cries had moderate cues to individuality and lacked cues to sex. Body weight correlated positively with fundamental frequency and negatively with call rate, duration, peak frequency and power quartiles. We discuss that dishonesty of acoustic traits of kitten quality could develop as adaptation for misleading a mother from allocation resources between the weaker and stronger individuals, thus enhancing individual chances for survival for the weaker littermates. Physical constraint, as body weight, may prevent extensive developing the deceptive vocal traits.

Maternal strategy for coping with confirmation of Zika virus infection during pregnancy: reflection on the neurodevelopment of their children

Resumo A infecção pelo vírus Zika na grávida resulta em alterações do desenvolvimento neuropsicomotor nas crianças afetadas, sendo importante fator de estresse para essas mulheres. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a estratégia de enfrentamento das mães a essa situação e como isto se refletiu no neurodesenvolvimento dos seus filhos. Estudo transversal com 46 mulheres e seus filhos. A estratégia de enfrentamento foi avaliada pelo Inventário Brief Cope, aplicado às mães, e o desenvolvimento neuropsicomotor das crianças, foi avaliado aos 24 meses de idade pelas Escalas Bayley III. A estratégia predominante de enfrentamento mais frequentemente usada pelas mães foi a de aproximação (73,9%), com destaque para o componente planejamento. A utilização da estratégia de negação esteve associada aos escores mais baixos na escala Bayley III, sendo nessa escala o componente mais utilizado o de auto culpabilização. A religião foi o componente de apoio auxiliar mais utilizado pelas mães. A utilização da negação como estratégia predominante de enfrentamento pelas mães mostrou associação com os piores resultados na avaliação do desenvolvimento infantil e reforça a necessidade do apoio a estas mulheres, para que possam lidar mais diretamente com os sentimentos decorrentes das situações vivenciadas.

Mothers in a cooperatively breeding bird increase investment per offspring at the pre-natal stage when they will have more help with post-natal care.

In many cooperative societies, including our own, helpers assist with the post-natal care of breeders' young and may thereby benefit the post-natal development of offspring. Here, we present evidence of a novel mechanism by which such post-natal helping could also have beneficial effects on pre-natal development: By lightening post-natal maternal workloads, helpers may allow mothers to increase their pre-natal investment per offspring. We present the findings of a decade-long study of cooperatively breeding white-browed sparrow-weaver, Plocepasser mahali, societies. Within each social group, reproduction is monopolized by a dominant breeding pair, and non-breeding helpers assist with nestling feeding. Using a within-mother reaction norm approach to formally identify maternal plasticity, we demonstrate that when mothers have more female helpers, they decrease their own post-natal investment per offspring (feed their nestlings at lower rates) but increase their pre-natal investment per offspring (lay larger eggs, which yield heavier hatchlings). That these plastic maternal responses are predicted by female helper number, and not male helper number, implicates the availability of post-natal helping per se as the likely driver (rather than correlated effects of group size), because female helpers feed nestlings at substantially higher rates than males. We term this novel maternal strategy "maternal front-loading" and hypothesize that the expected availability of post-natal help either allows or incentivizes helped mothers to focus maternal investment on the pre-natal phase, to which helpers cannot contribute directly. The potential for post-natal helping to promote pre-natal development further complicates attempts to identify and quantify the fitness consequences of helping.

Novel hatching cue in the neotropical damselfly Megaloprepus caerulatus: larval adaptation and maternal constraint

The evolution of sibling cannibalism as a maternal strategy is particularly challenging to explain when nurseries are shared among multiple females. Such is the case for the damselfly, Megaloprepus caerulatus, whose females lay eggs in bark above the water line in large, water-filled tree holes. Asynchronous egg hatching appears to be a maternal bet-hedging strategy to increase the chances that cannibalistic offspring hatch during windows of opportunity, which occur after the remaining large larvae emerge, having eaten all others. We investigated the proximate causes of asynchronous hatching. By monitoring the pattern of egg hatching under ambient temperature in an insectary, we found that egg hatching co-occurred with lower ambient temperatures, which decreased with increasing rainfall. Treating fully developed eggs to a lower temperature for two hours triggered increased hatching relative to controls at ambient temperature. Dissection of control clutches indicated that embryonic development of siblings was asynchronous. Results suggested that the hatching trigger is adaptive. Rainfall assures a recharge of the larval habitat with water and provides wet conditions essential for neonate mobility on bark. Only 40% of neonates in a 4-day drying treatment survived; none survived the 8- and 14-day treatments. This novel hatching trigger should increase the number of neonates entering the nursery after rains, constraining a mother’s control over the timing of egg hatch, while increasing the competition among related and unrelated offspring for limited windows of opportunity in the shared nursery.

Families Facing Pandemic Modifications of Everyday Life: A Mixed Study on Mothers' and Children's Emotional Reactions and Regulation Strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many enduring changes in the everyday life of families, with negative effects on parents' and children's wellbeing. However, there is a lack of studies in the literature exploring the emotional reactions and coping strategies of both mothers and children of different ages. Furthermore, most studies used only self-reports. This study aimed to identify the emotions and coping strategies of children, adolescents and their mothers and to verify the association between maternal and child wellbeing. A mixed-method design using interviews and questionnaires was applied to collect information on wellbeing (emotional reactions, behavioral/emotional problems) and coping strategies of both mothers (n = 65; M age = 42.17; SD = 4.40; M age = 41.63; SD = 4.48), and their children (n = 35, 8-10 year; n = 30, 11-13 year) during the second wave of the pandemic (December 2020). No differences between the groups emerged concerning the emotional reactions reported. In contrast, mothers and children of different ages reported different self-regulation and other-regulation strategies. Moreover, maternal strategies had different effects on children's wellbeing. The integration of qualitative and quantitative results was informative to understand how families adapted to the radical changes of everyday life related to the pandemic. The implications for developing interventions in such similar stressful situations to promote family wellbeing are discussed.

A Paternal Fish Oil Diet Preconception Reduces Lung Inflammation in a Toxicant-Driven Murine Model of New Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia.

New bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a neonatal disease that is theorized to begin in utero and manifests as reduced alveolarization due to inflammation of the lung. Risk factors for new BPD in human infants include intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), premature birth (PTB) and formula feeding. Using a mouse model, our group recently reported that a paternal history of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) exposure increased his offspring's risk of IUGR, PTB, and new BPD. Additionally, formula supplementation of these neonates worsened the severity of pulmonary disease. In a separate study, we reported that a paternal preconception fish oil diet prevented TCDD-driven IUGR and PTB. Not surprisingly, eliminating these two major risk factors for new BPD also significantly reduced development of neonatal lung disease. However, this prior study did not examine the potential mechanism for fish oil's protective effect. Herein, we sought to determine whether a paternal preconception fish oil diet attenuated toxicant-associated lung inflammation, which is an important contributor to the pathogenesis of new BPD. Compared to offspring of standard diet TCDD-exposed males, offspring of TCDD-exposed males provided a fish oil diet prior to conception exhibited a significant reduction in pulmonary expression of multiple pro-inflammatory mediators (Tlr4, Cxcr2, Il-1 alpha). Additionally, neonatal lungs of pups born to fish oil treated fathers exhibited minimal hemorrhaging or edema. Currently, prevention of BPD is largely focused on maternal strategies to improve health (e.g., smoking cessation) or reduce risk of PTB (e.g., progesterone supplementation). Our studies in mice support a role for also targeting paternal factors to improve pregnancy outcomes and child health.

Kangaroo Fathers Modulate Maternal Control of Offspring Sex but Not Postpartum Maternal Expenditure.

AbstractWhen sons and daughters have different fitness costs and benefits, selection may favor deviations from an even offspring sex ratio. Most theories on sex ratio manipulation focus on maternal strategies and sex-biased maternal expenditure. Recent studies report paternal influences on both offspring sex ratio and postpartum sex-biased maternal expenditure. We used long-term data on marked kangaroos to investigate whether and how paternal mass and skeletal size, both determinants of male reproductive success, influenced (a) offspring sex in interaction with maternal mass and (b) postpartum sex-biased maternal expenditure. When mothers were light, the probability of having a son increased with paternal mass. Heavy mothers showed the opposite trend. A similar result emerged when considering paternal size instead of mass. Postpartum maternal sex-specific expenditure was independent of paternal mass or size. Studies of offspring sex manipulation or maternal expenditure would benefit from an explicit consideration of paternal traits, as paternal and maternal effects can modulate each other.

Stable isotopes reveal the effects of maternal rank and infant age on weaning dynamics in wild chacma baboons

Maternal strategies reflect the trade-off between offspring needs and maternal ability to invest, a concept described by the evolutionary theory of parent–offspring conflict. In mammals this conflict has often been investigated by studying weaning, the transition from maternal milk consumption to dietary independence. An investigation of individual variation in weaning can provide information on the adaptive significance of maternal strategies in relation to social and biological variables. We analysed stable nitrogen isotopes of hair samples collected from 22 mother–infant dyads in a wild population of chacma baboons, Papio ursinus, in conjunction with behavioural data on suckling, to explore the temporal dynamics of weaning, as well as the extent and determinants of individual variation in these dynamics. The weaning pattern suggested by isotope values and behavioural data were congruent. The difference between infant and mother stable nitrogen isotope values decreased faster with age in infants of low-ranking mothers, which suggests a faster progression towards weaning, perhaps due to subordinate females experiencing lower resource availability and so being less able to bear the costs of lactation over prolonged periods. Additionally, within-infant variation in stable nitrogen isotope values showed an increase with age (which was not detectable between infants), potentially highlighting the nutritional costs that weaning imposes on offspring. Our combination of isotope analysis and behavioural data from a wild population provides insight into the evolution of maternal strategies. In particular, it suggests that the quantity of care a mother can provide is affected by her rank, with subordinate females possibly not able to lactate for as long and perhaps benefiting from weaning earlier.

Shifts in maternal foraging strategies during pregnancy promote offspring health and survival in a marine top predator.

The success of maternal foraging strategies during the rearing period can greatly impact the physiology and survival of dependent offspring. Surprisingly though, little is known on the fitness consequences of foraging strategies during the foetal period. In this study, we characterized variation in maternal foraging strategy throughout pregnancy in a marine top predator (South American fur seal, Arctocephalus australis), and asked if these shifts predicted neonatal health and postnatal survival. We found that during early pregnancy all pregnant females belonged to a single, homogenized foraging niche without evident clusters. Intriguingly though, during late pregnancy, individual fur seal mothers diverged into two distinct foraging niches characterized by a benthic-nearshore and a pelagic-offshore strategy. Females that shifted towards the benthic-nearshore strategy gave birth to pups with greater body mass, higher plasmatic levels of glucose and lower levels of blood urea nitrogen. The pups born to these benthic females were eight times more likely to survive compared to females using the pelagic-offshore foraging strategy during late pregnancy. These survival effects were mediated primarily by the impact of foraging strategies on neonatal glucose independent of protein metabolic profile and body mass. Benthic-nearshore foraging strategies during late pregnancy potentially allow for the greater maternal transfer of glucose to the foetus, leading to higher chances of neonatal survival. These results call for a deeper understanding of the balance between resource acquisition and allocation provided by distinct foraging polymorphisms during critical life-history periods, and how this trade-off may be adaptive under certain environmental conditions.

Maternal Emotion Regulation and Early Childhood Irritability: The Role of Child Directed Emotion Regulation Strategies

Parental assistance with children's emotion regulation (ER) is a form of emotion socialization behavior that has recently been operationalized with the development of the Parent Assistance with Child Emotion Regulation (PACER) questionnaire. In line with Eisenberg et al.'s heuristic model of the socialization of emotion, this study sought to test the links between mothers' ER difficulties, their use of ER strategies with their child, and child irritability – a salient dimension of child regulatory difficulties. Cross-sectional data was collected online with mothers (N = 371) of children aged one month to 5 years (M = 2.07 years, SD = 1.25) and data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. After controlling for child age and gender, maternal distress, and household income, we found small but significant associations between maternal ER difficulties and child irritability. However, maternal use of ER strategies did not account for further variance in child irritability. These findings suggest that there are meaningful associations between maternal ER and child irritability, although maternal strategies to support child ER appear independent of their own ER capacity. Whilst not associated with child irritability, maternal support for children's ER may be associated with other indicators of mental health risk and resilience.

Ecological factors influencing parenting self-efficacy among working mothers with a child under 36\xa0month old in South Korea: a cross\u2010sectional and correlational study

BackgroundParenting self-efficacy is an essential component for parents to successfully perform their role and is important for mother and child well-being. To support parenting self-efficacy amongst working mothers, it is necessary to understand the factors influencing parenting self-efficacy amongst this group. However, the majority of previous studies regarding factors influencing parenting self-efficacy did not focus on working mothers. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the factors influencing parenting self-efficacy of working mothers using an ecological framework.MethodsThe research design was a cross-sectional, correlational study. The participants were 298 working mothers with a child under 3 years of age, who were recruited from ten nurseries. Data were collected from August 8 to September 22, 2017 using structured questionnaires, including the Parenting Sense of Competency scale, a one-item Short Form Health Survey scale, the Maternal Role Satisfaction scale, the Parenting Stress Inventory, the Work and Parent Role Conflict scale, the Parenting Alliance Inventory, the Social Support scale, and the Childbirth and Parenting Friendly System scale. The study process of this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. Collected data were analyzed by SPSS 23.0 Win program with descriptive statistics, t-test, one way ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and hierarchical multiple regression.ResultsWorking mothers who were the primary caregiver had higher parenting self-efficacy compared to those who were not the primary caregiver (β = .13, p = .022). At the individual level, the higher maternal role satisfaction, the higher parenting self-efficacy of working mothers (β = .27, p < .001). In the micro-system level, higher parenting support by a spouse was associated with higher parenting self-efficacy of working mothers (β = .19, p = .002).ConclusionsEducational interventions for increasing the awareness and satisfaction of maternal role and various strategies for fathers' active participation in parenting should be developed. In addition, practical interventions that reduce the burden of parenting while supporting parenting self-efficacy of working mothers who are the primary caregiver should also be considered.

Women's strategies for managing domestic violence during pregnancy: a qualitative study in Iran

BackgroundDomestic violence during pregnancy is a severe public health problem. Abused pregnant women are confronted with the threats posed by domestic violence. Pregnancy and protection of the unborn child could affect maternal strategies for managing violence. The purpose of this study was to explore Iranian women's strategies for managing domestic violence during pregnancy.MethodsThis qualitative study was conducted in October 2019 to June 2021 in Mashhad, Iran. Data were collected through individual semi structured interviews with 13 women who experienced perinatal domestic violence, two relatives and 24 related specialists as well as two focus group discussions with attendance of 20 abused mothers until the data saturation was achieved. Data were analyzed by the conventional content analysis approach of Graneheim and Lundman.ResultsThe main themes "escape strategies" and "situation improvement strategies" were emerged as the result of data analysis. Escape strategies was comprised of three categories including concealment, passive dysfunctional behaviors and neutral behaviors to control maternal emotional distress. Situation improvement strategies was comprised of three categories including active self-regulation, protecting family privacy and help seeking to control violence.ConclusionUnderstanding the experience of managing domestic violence among pregnant women is essential to design evidence based violence prevention programs, which enable supportive healthcare and social systems to encourage abused mothers to use more effective strategies and seeking help to overcome domestic violence.

The role of maternal age, growth, and environment in shaping offspring performance in an aerial conifer seed bank.

Maternal effects have been demonstrated to affect offspring performance in many organisms, and in plants, seeds are important mediators of these effects. Some woody plant species maintain long-lasting canopy seed banks as an adaptation to wildfires. Importantly, these seeds stored in serotinous cones are produced by the mother plant under varying ontogenetic and physiological conditions. We sampled the canopy seed bank of a highly serotinous population of Pinus pinaster to test whether maternal age and growth and the environmental conditions during each crop year affected seed mass and ultimately germination and early survival. After determining retrospectively the year of each seed cohort, we followed germination and early survival in a semi-natural common garden. Seed mass was related to maternal age and growth at the time of seed production; i.e., slow-growing, older mothers had smaller seeds, and fast-growing, young mothers had larger seeds, which could be interpreted either as a proxy of senescence or as a maternal strategy. Seed mass had a positive effect on germination success, but aside from differences in seed mass, maternal age had a negative effect and diameter had a positive effect on germination timing and subsequent survival. The results highlight the importance of maternal conditions combined with seed mass in shaping seedling establishment. Our findings open new insights in the offspring performance deriving from long-term canopy seed banks, which may have high relevance for plant adaptation.

Multi-Indicator Intelligent Monitoring of Clinical Observations to Reduce Cesarean Section.

In order to analyze multi-index monitoring and the effect of reducing cesarean section, this paper selects March 2018 and March 2019 in two obstetrics and gynecology hospitals, referred to as hospital A and hospital B. As research objects, 313 pregnant women were divided into multi-index group and conventional group, while analyzing various indicators of each group of cesarean collection. The results show that the total CNAXE rate was 48.10% and 39.29%, respectively, for 2018 and 2019, respectively, and the cesarean section of the conventional group was 65.75% and 63.64%. By contrasting data of multi-index group and conventional group, hospital B differences were significant (P < 0.05), and hospital A difference was extremely significant (P < 0.01). In Cesarean section, obstetric sectors can help maternal treatment strategies by monitoring a series of related indicators for maternal to reduce Cesarean section and improve prognosis.

Chinese mother’s scaffolding of young children’s responses to stress and children’s depressive symptoms during the first year of primary school

The transition to primary school in Hong Kong is stressful for young children primarily due to increases in pressure for academic performance from teachers and parents. Researchers suggest that these pressures might account for the higher level of depressive symptoms seen in children from China and other Eastern countries than in Western settings. The current study examined whether maternal strategies for helping children cope with the stresses of this transition predicted depressive symptoms over the first year of primary school. One hundred and three first year primary school children in Hong Kong were interviewed about their depressive symptoms at the end of the second month and during the last month of their first year in primary school. One hundred mothers completed questionnaires about how they scaffolded their children’s responses to stress at the same time points. Principal components analysis identified three types of maternal strategies: positive scaffolding (helping children understand the situation, process their emotions, and problem-solve solutions, along with creating positive expectations for the future); dismiss/blame (downplaying the serious of problems or blaming the situation on the child or others); and encouraging avoidance (distraction and encouraging avoidance). At the lower SES school, there was a significant negative bidirectional relationship between positive scaffolding and depressive symptoms; at the higher SES school, dismiss/blame at Time 1 positively predicted depressive symptoms at Time 2 and depressive symptoms at Time 1 positively predicted positive scaffolding at Time 2. Results inform parents about childhood stress during the transition to primary school and teach parents effective ways to help their children cope with these stresses including helping them process their feelings, analyze the situation, problem-solve solutions, and develop positive expectancies about the future. These results can inform parenting education programs targeting children’s depressive symptoms and parents’ scaffolding skills.

Time to first antenatal care visit among pregnant women in Ethiopia: secondary analysis of EDHS 2016; application of AFT shared frailty models

BackgroundThe survival of pregnant women is one of great interest of the world and especially to a developing country like Ethiopia which had the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world due to low utilization of maternal health services including antenatal care (ANC). Survival analysis is a statistical method for data analysis where the outcome variable of interest is the time to occurrence of an event. This study demonstrates the applications of the Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) model with gamma and inverse Gaussian frailty distributions to estimate the effect of different factors on time to first ANC visit of pregnant women in Ethiopia.MethodsThis study was conducted by using 2016 EDHS data about factors associated with the time to first ANC visit of pregnant women in Ethiopia. A total of 4328 women from nine regions and two city administrations whose age group between 15 and 49 years were included in the study AFT models with gamma and inverse Gaussian frailty distributions have been compared using Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) to select the best model.ResultsThe factors residence, media exposure, wealth index, education level of women, education level of husband and husband occupation are found to be statistically significant (P-value < 0.05) for the survival time of time to first ANC visit of pregnant women in Ethiopia. Inverse Gaussian shared frailty model with Weibull as baseline distribution is found to be the best model for the time to first ANC visit of pregnant women in Ethiopia. The model also reflected there is strong evidence of the high degree of heterogeneity between regions of pregnant women for the time to first ANC visit.ConclusionThe median time of the first ANC visit for pregnant women was 5 months. From different candidate models, Inverse Gaussian shared frailty model with Weibull baseline is an appropriate approach for analyzing time to first ANC visit of pregnant women data than without frailty model. It is essential that maternal and child health policies and strategies better target women’s development and design and implement interventions aimed at increasing the timely activation of prenatal care by pregnant women. The researchers also recommend using more powerful designs (such as cohorts) for the research to establish timeliness and reduce death.

Left High and Dry: Froth Nesting Allows Eggs of the Anuran Amphibian to Complete Embryogenesis in the Absence of Free-Standing Water

For amphibians that oviposit in temporary aquatic systems, there is a high risk of desiccation-induced offspring mortality when water evaporates prior to the completion of embryo or tadpole development. Such a strong selective pressure has led to the evolution of a variety of traits in reproducing females and their offspring to improve the odds of reproductive success when free-standing water is temporarily available. Herein, we describe an adaptive function of froth nesting in the Sandpaper Frog, Lechriodus fletcheri, as a possible maternal strategy for protecting embryos from the immediate risk of desiccating in highly ephemeral pools that frequently dry prior to hatching. Field observations revealed that embryos located near the core of nests remained alive and continued to develop for several days after becoming stranded out of water due to declining water levels, with embryo viability maintained long enough for additional rainfall to recharge pools and support hatching of tadpoles into water in some cases. In laboratory trials, the proportion of embryos surviving in nests exposed to desiccating conditions was positively correlated with nest volume, while the rate of water loss relative to nest mass declined, both of which are likely a function of reduced surface area relative to volume in larger nests. We suggest that the encapsulation of embryos within an aerated mucus shields them from desiccation by trapping moisture around their external surfaces. As embryos of L. fletcheri complete development rapidly, the ability for the froth nest to protect against desiccation for several days may allow embryogenesis to be completed largely out of water despite the larval phase not being terrestrial. These results suggest froth nesting has played an important role in facilitating this species' use of ephemeral habitats that most other amphibians with aquatic reproductive modes are incapable of exploiting.