Abstract Sanjana S. Mammen Examining the SafeCare Parent-Infant Interaction Module’s Impact on the Quantity and Content of Maternal-Infant Directed Utterances (Under the direction of Shannon Self Brown, PhD) Positive parenting skills reduce risk for child maltreatment. The Parent-Infant Interaction (PII) module of SafeCare was designed to promote positive parent-child relationships; however, little research has examined its impact on parent-infant utterances. Past research has indicated that a rich parent-child language environment predicts literacy skills and academic achievement, so the present research studies how PII impacts positive maternal infant-directed utterances. Three dyads with various risk levels with infants aged younger than 9-months were offered PII training and a short video modeling positive parent-infant communication. Multiple-probe, single-case experimental design yielded data with several positive trends for maternal-infant utterances, but findings were inconsistent during all conditions. Conversely, following the video, improved utterances were demonstrated consistently across all activities and dyads. These pilot data render several future studies relevant to further our understanding of PII’s impact on maternal-infant communication broadly, including more rigorous research designs and measures to further study this important outcome.

Background: The incidence of Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy (HDP) is increasing in the US and is linked to serious long and short-term health problems for both mother and fetus. Vitamin D has been shown to have direct influence on molecular pathways involved in pregnancy. However a link between vitamin D status and HDP in Pregnant women has not been established. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to determine (1) the association between vitamin D deficiency and the occurrence of (HDP) and (2) whether non-Hispanic Black women (NHB) are at greater risk for HDP due to low vitamin D status. Methods: Pregnant females in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) study from 2001 to 2006 were used in this study. Participant’s response to interview questions and laboratory results were taken into account to determine HDP status. Logistic regression was used to determine the association between vitamin D status and HDP. Results: Pregnant women with low vitamin D status (25(OH)D < 20ng/ml) were 1.123 (95%CI: 0.808-1.56) times more likely to have HDP compared to women who were vitamin D sufficient. This association was not significant. NHB women did not show a significant increased risk for HDP. Conclusions: Low vitamin D status during pregnancy may lead to an increased risk for Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy. However more research on larger sample size is needed to determine the true extent of the association of vitamin D status with HDP in the general population and that of non-Hispanic Black women.

Birth (BW) (n = 1,107) and weaning weight (WW) (n = 1,024), pregnancy rate (PR) (n = 1,255), calf crop born (CCB) (n = 1,232), calf crop weaned (CCW) (n = 1,225), and cow??s weight at palpation (CW) (n = 1,403) were evaluated from 1994 to 2004 in 143 F1 females who were sired by Brahman (B), Boran (Bo), and Tuli (T) bulls and who were out of Angus and Hereford cows. In 2004, mouth scores (MS) (n = 71) were assigned to the remaining females. PR, CCB, CCW, CW, and BCS were evaluated using a model that consisted of sire of dam breed, dam of dam breed, and calf??s birth year/age of dam as fixed effects. Sire of dam within sire breed of dam and dam within sire of dam within sire breed of dam were used as random effects. BW and WW were analyzed using the same model including calf??s gender. Two-way interactions were tested for significance. Year/age was significant for all traits (P < 0.05). Adjusted means for BW for calves out of cows by B, Bo, and T sires were 35.66, 35.38, and 35.59 kg respectively, and were not different (P > 0.05). Adjusted means for WW for calves out of cows by B, Bo, and T sires were 233.4, 220.1, and 208.2 kg respectively, and were significantly different. For both BW and WW, male calves were heavier (P < 0.05) than females. Adjusted means for PR for females sired by B, Bo, and T bulls were 0.914, 0.945, and 0.920, and were not different (P > 0.05). Adjusted means for CCB for females sired by B, Bo, and T bulls were 0.890, 0.943, and 0.910 respectfully, and Bo was higher (P < 0.05) than B. CCW showed the same ranking as CCB with adjusted means of 0.834, 0.887, and 0.857 for cows by B, Bo, and T bulls, with Bo being higher (P < 0.05) than B. CW adjusted means, in the fall of 2002, were 594.29, 519.38, and 517.3 kg. B-sired females were heavier (P < 0.05) than Bo- or T- sired cows. More Bo- (P = 0.013) and B-sired (P = 0.003) cows had solid mouths in 2004 than T-sired cows.

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays broadly concerned with the determinants of human capital. The first essay estimates the causal effect of exposure to maternal psychological stress generated by the 9/11 attacks on the cohort in utero that day. The analysis finds that cohorts exposed during the first or second trimester in New York City weighed less at birth and had shorter gestation lengths. Male and female newborns were affected similarly. At age six, boys were more likely to be in special education and more likely to be in kindergarten rather than first grade, with no effect on girls. Births outside New York City were not affected. The results suggest that psychological stress is an important channel through which adverse conditions experienced by pregnant women negatively impact the early life outcomes of in utero cohorts. The second essay (joint with Katherine Baldiga) presents experimental evidence of a gender difference in the valuation of job training as an explanation for the female advantage in human capital investment that has emerged in many high income countries. In an online labor market, we find that when subjects have limited experience with an unfamiliar task, women are more willing to pay for training than men, and women estimate that the returns to training are higher than men do. We find that task performance, the return to training, self-confidence, and risk aversion cannot explain the gender gap in valuing training. We present suggestive evidence that training may be valued by women for increasing their willingness to take on a challenge. The third essay tests the prediction of several biological theories that maternal condition impacts the sex ratio at birth and causes differential investment by child's sex with data from the Dominican Republic, a developing country with relatively neutral offspring sex preferences. The analysis finds that more educated women are more likely to give birth to sons, and women in the middle of the maternal age distribution are less likely to have a male child die during infancy. These results provide evidence that maternal condition is correlated with the sex composition of children. / Economics

Maternal effects can be key determinants of female fitness through their influence on early life survival. In salmonids, three main sources of mortality in early life can be attributed to redd superimposition, predation, and starvation (meditated by territory limitation). The influence of different agents of mortality will depend on maternal phenotype (e.g. body size) and within-season reproductive timing. An individual-based model, incorporating both stochastic and deterministic processes, was developed to assess how the relationships between maternal fitness, maternal phenotype (body size) and spawning timing were affected by these different sources of mortality. I found that maternal size influenced fitness under some, but not all circumstances. Larger size was beneficial when predation mortality was low, territories were limited, and/or spawner density was high. Spawning time also influenced maternal fitness; early spawned juveniles were favoured when territories were limited, whereas later spawned juveniles were favoured when predation mortality was high. Component Allee effects at low spawned densities were also detected in some simulations. These results suggest that the fitness consequences of maternal phenotype depend on the sources of mortality present. The fact that these context-dependent sources of offspring mortality in early life may vary between habitats or between years increases the difficulty in identifying the correlates of maternal fitness in salmonid fishes.

To study maternal glucose tolerance in pregnancy and its effects on the fetus, a rapid 25g intravenous glucose tolerance test was performed at about 32 weeks gestation in a group of randomly selected women. Full glucose tolerance data was available in 815 cases. The results were withheld from the patients and their obstetricians and paediatricians, and no treatment or advice was offered. Fasting plasma glucose and indices of glucose disposal were distributed unimodally with no evidence of a separate pathological group towards the diabetic end of the distributions. Glucose disposal rate was not, however, signficantly associated with the fasting plasma glucose, suggesting that glucose intolerance associated with elevation of the fasting plasma glucose might be a more clearly defined entity. New reference standards for fasting plasma glucose in pregnancy, which differ from those currently in use, are presented. The major determinants of relatively impaired maternal glucose tolerance in pregnancy were maternal age and obesity. Nonetheless, many cases of relative glucose intolerance occurred in the absence of any preexisting clinical indication. Significant association were found between maternal glucose metabolism and various measures of neonatal size and morbidity, including the incidence of congenital malformations and the occurrence of perinatal asphyxia in post-term infants. These effects were graded through much of the range of maternal glucose tolerance and not of predictive value in individual cases. The available evidence did not indicate that these relationships were mediated by fetal hyperinsulinism. It is concluded that the adverse consequences of impaired glucose disposal with normal fasting plasma glucose in pregnancy do not justify exhaustive measures to identify the condition. Screening for glucose intolerance during pregnancy should seek to identify those cases in which glucose intolerance is associated with elevation of fasting plasma glucose.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1939.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1945.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Michigan, 1943.