Prenatal Determinants of Behavior describes the methods of research on events in the maternal environment during gestation affecting the postnatal behavior of offspring by altering the intra-uterine environment of the fetus. This book is composed of 11 chapters that focus on methods of investigation rather than on substantive findings in the belief that progress in explaining behavior depends on researchers recognizing in the way in which they design experiments that behavior is determined by a multitude of complexly interacting events. After a brief introduction to the aspects of pregnancy, this book goes on examining the role of maternal influences and environmental factors, such as irradiation, drugs, hormone, and nutrition, on postnatal offspring behavior. The discussion then shifts to methods of altering the emotional state of a mother that affect her physiological condition indirectly. Other chapters survey the principles and experimentation of the genotype-environment interaction and its influence of offspring behavior. The last chapters deal with human studies concerning the influence of a variety of prenatal variable on the growth, health, and behavior of human offspring, including smoking, maternal environment, nutrition, diseases, X-rays, drugs, and stress. This book will be of great value to psychiatrists and medical professionals and students.

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.

The increasing prevalence of preterm birth in the United States is a complex public health problem that requires multifaceted solutions. Preterm birth is a cluster of problems with a set of overlapping factors of influence. Its causes may include individual-level behavioral and psychosocial factors, sociodemographic and neighborhood characteristics, environmental exposure, medical conditions, infertility treatments, and biological factors. Many of these factors co-occur, particularly in those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups. While advances in perinatal and neonatal care have improved survival for preterm infants, those infants who do survive have a greater risk than infants born at term for developmental disabilities, health problems, and poor growth. The birth of a preterm infant can also bring considerable emotional and economic costs to families and have implications for public-sector services, such as health insurance, educational, and other social support systems. Preterm Birth assesses the problem with respect to both its causes and outcomes. This book addresses the need for research involving clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science disciplines. By defining and addressing the health and economic consequences of premature birth, this book will be of particular interest to health care professionals, public health officials, policy makers, professional associations and clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science researchers.

Clinics in Developmental Medicine No. 189 Fetal behaviour and movements not only give an insight into the developing brain, as an expression of neural activity, but are also necessary for the further development of neural structure and of other organs. This book presents an account of our current understanding of fetal behaviour as obtained through the assessment of fetal movements and behavioural states. The approach is based on the premises of developmental neurology, and provides important clues for the recognition of the age-specific functional repertoire of the nervous system. The companion DVD contains 26 movies using both ultrasound and dynamic MRI to illustrate the text. After presenting the historical background, the authors describe in detail the patterns of fetal movements and the mechanisms underlying them: They then discuss determinants of fetal behaviour, explaining the impact of different pregnancy-related and maternal factors on behaviour. Other chapters describe important aspects such as fetal responsiveness, laterality and development of handedness, and the behaviour of twins. The final chapter reviews research on the effects of various neurological conditions on fetal behaviour. The ability to assess the functional condition of the nervous system is invaluable to the clinician, as a considerable percentage of early brain damage is of prenatal origin. The structured and standardized description of fetal behavioural patterns proposed in this book improves our ability to understand the mechanisms underlying various aspects of behaviour in healthy fetuses and in those with brain lesions or other risk factors. Because of this, the volume will be of great interest not only to researchers in this field but also to all of those working in neonatology, paediatrics and paediatric neurology. Readership: Researchers in this field, neonatologists, paediatricians, paediatric neurologists, neurophysiologists, neuroscientists, obstetricians

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Although the ideals of the 'good mother' change with time, fashion and context, they persist in public policy, the media, popular culture and workplaces; placing pressure on women to conform to particular standards, against which they are judged and judge themselves.The Good Mother demonstrates that prevailing ideas about mothers and motherhood continue to influence the way 'types' of women are represented and the way that all mothers think, act and present themselves.