Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.70-79).

No description available.

Interventions to date have been minimally effective in reducing the rates of women gaining more weight than recommended by the Institute of Medicine in pregnancy. Food cravings are common in pregnancy, but their relationship, if any, with prenatal weight gain has received little attention in the literature. The purpose of this retrospective chart review study was to describe the frequency of cravings, associations between cravings and weight gain, and to determine what factors were predictive of reporting more cravings in pregnancy. A total of 1,259 charts were reviewed of women receiving care in an urban, community health center between 2006 and 2012. Women with healthy, singleton pregnancies were eligible to be included in the study. Of the 812 eligible women, 620 were excluded due to incomplete data. One-third of women in the sample (n = 194) were primiparous women. Their mean BMI was 28.3 (SD = 6.9). Almost 80% identified themselves as being Multi-Racial or African American. Cravings were reported by 75.3% of women in early pregnancy and 81.4% in late pregnancy. No differences in prenatal weight gain were seen between women with and without cravings. BMI, smoking, stress in early pregnancy, and emotional distress were not related to the numbers of cravings reported in pregnancy. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that two predictors, age and stress in late pregnancy, accounted for 8.7% of the variance in the numbers of cravings reported in pregnancy (R² =.087, R² adjusted = .070, F (2, 108) = 5.14, p = .007). Younger age was associated with reporting a greater number of cravings, β = -.205, t (110) = -2.222, p =.028, as was higher stress in late pregnancy, β = .201, t (110) =2.184, p =.031. The findings of this study suggest that cravings are not related to prenatal weight gain, although the quality of this study was undermined by its small sample size and problems with the way cravings were measured. Developing a valid and reliable measure of cravings would be a fruitful next step.

This thesis presents the design of new integrated charge pumps with high performance. An analysis method is determined to evaluate the voltage gain, the output resistance and the conversion efficiency parameters of integrated charge pumps. An optimization method is developed to improve the performance through capacitor sizing based on area constraints. Several charge pumps structures are optimized and compared including the losses due to devices parasitics. Results show that the Dickson charge pump (voltage doubler) is the best structure for integration. Therefore, techniques to improve per- formance and conversion efficiency of integrated voltage doubler are proposed. Switch bootstrapping technique prevents short-circuit losses, improves driving capability, and enhances the overall efficiency. The application of charge reuse technique reduces the dynamic power losses of integrated voltage doublers and double charge pumps. A pro- totype of the integrated voltage doublers was fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS process with the proposed techniques. Measured results have been presented, demonstrating the improvements in performance and conversion efficiency, with a good correlation between measured and predicted results.

Increasing obesity rates in Canadian women are at an all time high with more than 50% of Canadian women falling into one of the four overweight to obese categories. Further to this 11-21% of Canadian women who are of child-bearing age are being described as overweight or obese. Along with the increasing rates of obesity is an increase in the number of operative deliveries experienced by pregnant women in Canada. Canadian women experience cesarean section (CS) approximately 21% of the time while women in Ontario experience an even higher rate of CS (26%). While currently there are several studies examining the relationship between pre-pregnancy overweight and obesity and its association with CS, there is little research examining the relationship between excess weight gain in pregnancy and operative delivery methods. Data were collected through a retrospective chart review to examine the relationship between excess weight gain in pregnancy and operative delivery methods. Mean weight gain throughout pregnancy was measured. Data analysis was conducted using t-tests, Chi-Squared analyses and Fisher’s Exact test of significance, accepting a significance level of alpha = 0.05 with a 95% Confidence Interval of difference. The analysis conducted demonstrated no significant relationship between weight gain in pregnancy and operative delivery methods. When examining maternal weight and labour type, statistical significance was reached (p = 0.04) demonstrating increased likelihood of induction with excess weight gain in pregnancy; statistical significance was also reached with maternal age greater than 35 years and increased risk for operative delivery(p = 0.04). Further analysis demonstrated statistically significant results when examining one minute Apgar scores between the group of women with recorded weights in comparison to those women whose charts did not contain weights. The lack of findings in this study may be largely attributed to the small sample size.Important practice issues were identified. It is important that pre-pregnancy or early pregnancy weight and height be recorded on all women in hospital databases as well paper charts. Consistency in recording weight units in either pounds or kilograms is imperative. Dietary consultation is an important component of prenatal care and women who enter pregnancy overweight or obese should have immediate access to nutritional counseling. / Thesis (Master, Nursing) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-22 09:00:57.695

No description available.

Smoking cessation leads to weight gain but the reason for this gain is not clearly established. The objective of this study was to compare the mean change in dietary intake among quitters and non-quitters enrolled in a smoking cessation program. Mean dietary intake was measured using 24-hour recall over the telephone at baseline and 6 weeks after the scheduled 'quit date'. Baseline data were obtained from 177 subjects and 130 (73%) were recontacted with complete data. There were 47 quitters (27%). The mean self-reported weight gain among the quitters and non-quitters was 2.4 kg +/- 3.1 and 0.04 kg +/- 2.5 respectively (p = 0.001). Mean energy intake was the same at baseline between the quitters and non-quitters. There were statistically significant changes in dietary intake between quitters and non-quitters. Given the high within-individual variability (sd 832) this sample size was only sufficient to detect differences in the change in intake of approximately 460 kcals between quitters and non-quitters.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes survey instruments. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 63-68)