Developmental and social factors in Nigerian children's accidents

Accidents to children are discussed in terms of developmental and social factors in Nigeria. The types of accidents involving children and age trends in accident incidence are reported. Physical, perceptual, cognitive and social development are discussed. Social factors identified are family variables, the physical environment, and attitudes and folk beliefs.

Malnutrition and gender relations in Western Kenya

Child malnutrition, which is an increasing problem in Western Kenya, is addressed primarily through efforts to reach the individual mother with information about proper feeding of her children. A study carried out in Siaya, Kisumu and Busia Districts showed that mothers perceived nutrition problems differently, emphasizing their embeddedness in gender and family relations. In situations of marital conflict, male labour migration, and impoverishment, women must rely on support from others; thus health education should be addressed to husbands, grandmothers and mothers-in-law as well as mothers.

Maternal work and child-care strategies in peri-urban Guatemala: nutritional effects

Associations of 293 mothers' work for earnings and child-care arrangements with the anthropometric status of their children were examined in urban Guatemala. It was hypothesized that during the period of life in which growth often falters (8 through 35 months), maternal employment could be beneficial for children. Informal workers tended to be poorer, less educated, and have more undernourished children than formal workers or nonworkers. When poverty and mother's education were controlled for, no effects of maternal employment on children's anthropometric growth patterns were seen. However, the percent of the family income the mother earned was positively associated with all anthropometric indicators, controlling for confounds. Children taken care of by preteen siblings had significantly lower weight for height than those in other situations, even controlling for SES and maternal employment status. These effects were not found in a 36-48-month-old sample.

Lactation, birth spacing and maternal work-loads among two castes in rural Nepal

The nursing behaviour of rural Nepali women, from two castes inhabiting the same village, is quantified on the basis of 2202 hr of continuous and direct day-time observation over 1 year. Feed duration, interval, total time and daily frequency are examined in relation to women's work, particularly the type of subsistence activity and seasonality. 'Opportunity' feeds are governed both by infant demands and maternal activity. Caste differences in birth intervals are also discussed.

Intention versus behaviour in parental sex preferences among the Mukogodo of Kenya

The relationship between parents' stated sex preferences for children and actual parental behaviour towards sons and daughters is examined among the Mukogodo, a group of traditional pastoralists in rural Kenya. Although their cultural values are male-centered and they tend to express a preference for sons, Mukogodo parents actually appear to be more solicitous of daughters, and the Mukogodo have a strongly female-biased childhood sex ratio. Studies of stated sex preferences should therefore be coupled with attempts to assess actual parental investment in sons and daughters.

Birth order effects and time allocation

"In this paper, a model is developed in which the explanation for birth-order effects does not rely on absence of capital markets, but follows from optimal allocation of parental time and goods among children over the childrearing years. The model yields two key results, which are then tested using 1967-1968 household survey data from urban Colombia.... It is shown that first and last-born children of mothers who do not work have an advantage over middle-borns.... At the same time, as predicted, there are no differences by birth order among children of working mothers. The persistence of birth-order effects even in high-income families indicates that such effects are at least in part due to the time constraint modelled; this is a strong result given the possibility of better substitutes for mother's time than allowed for in the model, and the likelihood that high-income families are able to purchase better substitutes."

America's children: mixed prospects

The prospects of US children are uneven and uncertain. Today's youngsters are more apt to have fewer siblings, come from a broken home, have a working mother, and pass time as a "latchkey kid." More children are in child care than in the past and there has been a significant move toward center-based care. Increasingly, preschool-age children, particularly from relatively well-off families, are enrolled in prekindergarten educational settings. Declining family size and recent American prosperity have created material well-being for most of today's children. But the development of an underclass has also increased the number of children trapped in poverty. The stagnant wages of the "working poor" and the growing number of mother-only households have exacerbated income inequality among children from different family circumstances. The decline in educational achievement scores, which characterized the 1970s, has, for the moment at least, ended and the average school performance even improved slightly in the 1980s. In addition, more students, especially black students, completed high school in the 1980s. And the physical health of the average American child has improved dramatically since 1960. Most American children lead happy, healthy lives and several trends portend well for the future of most youngsters. But the picture is marred by the problematic future of the children of the underclass and the uncertain psychological impact of America's transformed family life.

Aspects of community-based nutritional intervention

A number of aspects are discussed in relation to community-based nutrition intervention projects. This includes the application of different intervention measures, the used of anthropometric indicators, and the methods of immediate and final data evaluation.

Diarrhea in developed and developing countries: magnitude, special settings, and etiologies

Diarrheal diseases are major causes of morbidity, with attack rates ranging from two to 12 or more illnesses per person per year in developed and developing countries. In addition, diarrheal illnesses account for an estimated 12,600 deaths each day in children in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The causes of diarrhea include a wide array of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, many of which have been recognized only in the last decade or two. While enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and rotaviruses predominate in developing areas, Norwalk-like viruses, Campylobacter jejuni, and cytotoxigenic Clostridium difficile are seen with increasing frequency in developed areas; and Shigella, Salmonella, Cryptosporidium species, and Giardia lamblia are found throughout the world. The rational management of infectious diarrhea requires the highly selective use of laboratory tests for these varied etiologic agents, depending on the clinical and epidemiologic setting. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the magnitude, special settings, and etiologies of diarrhea endemic to developed and developing countries. This information permits a practical approach to the diagnosis and management of common diarrheal illnesses in different settings.

[Changes in economic well-being of families with children in Canada and Quebec over the last 15 years]

"This study analyses changes in the average real income of families with children [in Canada] over the 1971-1987 period. It presents the factual basis with which to evaluate changes in incomes at a variety of positions along the income distribution, focusing on poverty and income inequality. The study presents the sources of family income changes by emphasizing: the contributions of wives' earnings which affect total family income, the incidence of poverty as well as time available for leisure and child care; the role of government's cash transfers and personal income taxes." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

The perceived burden of children

We expect that mothers vary in the degree to which they perceive their children as burdensome, and that this variation may help explain why past research on the effect of children on mothers' psychological distress often finds insignificant or inconsistent effects: mothers who feel their children are a burden may have high distress levels compared with mothers who do not feel burdened. We find that mothers experience their children as differentially burdensome at different stages in the life cycle: younger mothers' perceived burden increases with each additional child, but older mothers are less affected by increasing numbers of children. Preschool children increase all mothers' perceived burden because they tend to make mothers feel that they cannot be alone when they want to. Employed mothers feel less burdened by their children than the nonemployed. Social context - the density of people in the home, integration into the neighborhood, and the presence of relatives in the area - had a number of unexpected effects. Crowding in the home increased the perception that children are burdensome by way of subjective crowding - the perception that there is too much activity in the home, the perceived inability to be alone, and dissatisfaction with living space. However, controlling for subjective crowding, the more adults in the home, the less the burden of children, presumably because these other adults can help care for the children. Integration into the neighborhood increased the likelihood of sharing child care with friends and neighbors, but this shared child care increased the perception of burden. We had expected the opposite. Possibly it increases perceived burden because it increases the obligation to care for one's neighbors' children in return for their help. Having relatives in the area increased the likelihood that these family members would care for one's children, but this child care had no significant effect on reducing burden. Instead, relatives in the area increased a mother's perception that she could not be alone when she wanted to, which increased burden. Thus, we find a number of costs of social integration for mothers.