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Biomedical subjects

B Medoff-Cooper

Publications and source records attributed to B Medoff-Cooper.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

A Markov regression model for nutritive sucking data.

We explore the relationship between nutritive sucking behavior and physiological status of premature infants. Conventional statistical methods are no longer adequate in this context due to the highly complex structure of nutritive sucking data. We describe sucking pattern by a binary time series and propose a Markov regression model that relates the transition probabilities of the Markov chain to time-dependent covariates through a logistic linkage function. The model is fit to data collected at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The results are compared with those obtained from traditional data analysis.

Biometry↗
PubMed1995

Infant temperament: implications for parenting from birth through 1 year.

Individual differences in behavioral style are seen readily in the first hours of life of the normal newborn. The intent of this overview is to delineate some specific issues of infant temperament that nurses will find beneficial in their endeavor to facilitate positive parent-infant relationships. Topics include a brief overview of infant temperament research, instruments and methods of measuring temperament, the relationship of temperament to postpartum depression, and colic. Clinical advice on day-to-day living experiences with a difficult infant will be offered.

Humans↗
PubMed1995

Neonatal sucking behaviors.

Neonatal sucking responses or behaviors have been of great interest to researchers and clinicians since the early 1800s. Since 1960, there has been a resurgence of interest in the objective study of sucking behaviors in both the psychological and medical literature. The studies have examined both nutritive and non-nutritive sucking measurements. Sucking behaviors have been studied to understand the development of the feeding mechanism as well as to track neurobehavioral development. The relationship between sucking behaviors and behavioral organization of the newborn are considered, along with a historical perspective of sucking measurements, relevant literature on nutritive sucking, physiologic correlates, differences in breast and bottle feeding patterns, non-nutritive sucking, and factors that modify sucking organization. Implications for nursing practice will be discussed.

Bottle Feeding↗
PubMed1994

Transition of the preterm infant to an open crib.

One of the most important steps in preparing a preterm infant for discharge is the weaning from a thermoregulated environment to an open crib. This research utilization project tested a research-based protocol to wean very low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants to an open crib. Two hundred seventy infants from 10 hospitals were enrolled in this project. The mean gestational age at birth was 29.3 +/- 2.8 weeks. The mean birth weight for the VLBW infants was 1,118.05 +/- 269.64 g. The mean weight when the infants were moved to an open crib was 1,598 +/- 135.7 g. The mean time for temperature stabilization after the infant was placed in an open crib was 63 +/- 41 minutes. This research utilization project has proven to be successful in that standardization of a protocol for weaning preterm infants is possible and preterm infants can be moved to an open crib at a much lower weight than has been shown in earlier clinical trials.

Beds↗
PubMed1993

The Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire.

Although there are several scales routinely used for assessment of temperament during the first year of life, none of them is well suited to the infant younger than 4 months old. The Early Infancy Temperament Questionnaire (EITQ) was designed to meet this need. The EITQ is a 76-item parent questionnaire for assessing the nine New York Longitudinal Study temperament characteristics in 1- to 4-month-old infants. The majority of the items were adapted from the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire to be developmentally appropriate for the very young infant. The standardization population consisted of 404 infants from one pediatric practice. Means for the nine categories were calculated separately for infants from 1 to 2 months and 3 to 4 months old. Internal consistency for the nine categories ranged from .42 to .76. Test-retest scores, completed between 2 to 3 weeks after the first rating, ranged from .43 to .87, with generally increasing retest levels in the older age group. None of the categories showed significant differences between male and female infants. This newly developed instrument should enhance the ability of both researchers and clinicians to assess temperament reliably and to understand better its contribution to clinical problems in the very young child.

Female↗
PubMed1992

Substance abuse.

The potential for human developmental toxicity caused by chemical exposure was not generally recognized until the thalidomide tragedy of the early 1960s, at which time it was acknowledged that the placenta is not a barrier protecting the fetus. The focus of this chapter is to present the role of substance abuse screening in prenatal care, the gamut of drugs, and the clinical implications of the substances abused by pregnant women, as well as the legal and ethical considerations. Physiologic and care issues will be discussed. Legal substances discussed include the commonly used artificial sweeteners, caffeine, cigarette smoking, alcohol, and over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Illegal substances discussed include marijuana, phencyclidine, lysergic acid diethylamide, opiates, and cocaine.

Ethics, Nursing↗
PubMed1992

Thermoregulation in low-birth-weight infants.

Thermoregulation is a critical component of neonatal nursing care, particularly with regard to preterm infants. To provide appropriate care, nurses must be aware of the energy balance equation, mechanisms of heat loss, and specific factors related to preterm infants. In addition to the standard care measures implemented from birth through intensive care, nurses need to be aware of principles related to weaning an infant to an open crib.

Body Temperature Regulation↗
PubMed1989

The clinical specialist-staff nurse research team: a model for clinical research.

Increasing sophistication in nursing research has created a demand for preliminary work before the completion of a design for a major research project. This report presents a method which meets this need and provides research experience to nurses working on the clinical units. The role of the doctorally prepared clinical nurse specialist (CNS) in promoting collaborative research is presented. For the staff nurse the purpose of this collaboration was to facilitate an introduction of nursing research during the completion of her BSN. A secondary purpose was to provide the doctorally prepared CNS with preliminary data on the effects of nursing care on preterm infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Through collaborative effort, a research protocol was developed and implemented with four preterm infants. The successful completion of this project provided the CNS with preliminary data and the staff nurse with a better understanding of the complexities as well as the rewards of clinical nursing research.

Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia↗
PubMed1988

In vivo 31P nuclear magnetic resonance measurement of chronic changes in cerebral metabolites following neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether cerebral metabolic changes occur after intraventricular hemorrhage in the newborn. Five babies with bilateral grade 3 to 4 intraventricular hemorrhage were compared with 15 preterm infants without intraventricular hemorrhage. Cerebral high-energy phosphorus metabolites and intracellular pH were measured with in vivo 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Spectra were collected initially within the first 2 weeks of life, and then every other week until discharged from the hospital. The phosphocreatine to inorganic phosphate ratio and the phosphocreatine to adenosine triphosphate ratio were significantly lower in the group with intraventricular hemorrhage, but differences in intracellular pH were not significant. Differences between babies with and without intraventricular hemorrhage varied with postconceptional age: in those with intraventricular hemorrhage, the phosphocreatine to adenosine triphosphate ratio was decreased at all postconceptional ages, and the phosphocreatine to inorganic phosphate ratio was lower in babies with intraventricular hemorrhage and younger than 30 weeks. Results of this study confirm the presence of chronic metabolic changes following intraventricular hemorrhage which may exacerbate neurologic damage after intraventricular hemorrhage in the newborn.

Adenosine Triphosphate↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The correlation of sucking behaviors and Bayley Scales of Infant Development at six months of age in VLBW infants.

The purpose of this study was to identify early predictors of developmental outcomes in infants of very low birth weight (< or = 1,500 g). The sample consisted of 19 infants with a mean birth weight of 1,238 g and a mean gestational age at birth of 29.1 weeks. The instruments used were the Kron Nutritive Sucking Apparatus, the Neonatal Morbidity Scale, and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID). Mean pressure generated by each suck and the length of sucking bursts were positively correlated (p < .05) with the Psychomotor Scale of the BSID. As a predictor of developmental outcomes at 6 months of age, nutritive sucking demonstrated a 78% specificity and an 80% sensitivity, as compared with neonatal morbidity, 58% and 69%, respectively. In a small sample of relatively healthy preterm infants, their ability to suck helped identify those with questionable early development.

Child Development↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Developing a research mentoring partnership in Israel.

A relationship begun in 1985 between the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and the Henrietta Szold Hadassah/Hebrew University has included a student exchange program and a faculty mentoring partnership. The student exchange focused on maternal-child nursing and led to the development of the faculty mentoring program. The goals of the latter program are to increase the expertise of the Israeli nursing faculty in the development of grant applications, publications, and abstracts and to develop a National Institutes of Health-supported research project with an Israeli nursing faculty as principal investigator.

Humans↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The HOME scale: the influence of socioeconomic status on the evaluation of the home environment.

Caldwell's Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) was developed to provide specific and sensitive information about the home and maternal environment as a stimulus to infant learning and development. The use of the HOME scale was examined in a sample of 118 middle- and lower-income mothers and their low-birth-weight (LBW) or very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants. The analysis of data demonstrated limited variability in the HOME scale total scores within each income group, and income alone was found to account for 41% of the variance in the sample. These findings raise questions about the effectiveness of the HOME scale in making useful discriminations about family functioning within an income group.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Serial neurobehavioral assessments in preterm infants.

The purpose of this study was to compare serial neurobehavioral assessments in a sample of preterm infants with intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) to those of a group of unaffected preterm infants. Of the 30 infants included in the study, 5 infants had a grade III or IV/VI intraventricular hemorrhage. Infants with IVH demonstrated more abnormalities in mental status and a cluster of abnormal neurologic findings (persistent ankle clonus, tremulousness, and brisk deep tendon reflexes). Of the 30 infants, 20 infants were included in a brain metabolism study. Infants who had experienced an IVH had significantly different brain metabolism findings, as measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). There was a significant correlation between one measure of brain metabolism (PCr/PI) and the neurobehavioral assessment rating for infants with IVH.

Brain↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neonatal sucking as a clinical assessment tool: preliminary findings.

The sucking patterns of 42 healthy full-term and 44 preterm infants whose gestational age at birth was 30.9 +/- 2.1 weeks were compared using the Kron Nutritive Sucking Apparatus for a 5-minute period. The measured pressures were used to calculate six characteristics of the sucking response: maximum pressure generated, amount of nutrient consumed per suck, number of sucks per episode, the duration or width of each suck, the length of time between sucks, and the length of time between sucking episodes. The maximum pressure of the term infant (100.3 +/- 35) was higher, p less than .05, than the maximum pressure of the preterm infant (84 +/- 33). Term infants also consumed more formula per suck (45.3 +/- 20.3 vs. 37.6 +/- 15.9, p less than .05). In addition, they had more sucks/episode (13.6 +/- 8.7 vs. 7.7 +/- 4.1, p less than .001) and maintained the pressure longer for a wider suck width (0.49 +/- 0.1 vs. 0.45 +/- 0.08, p less than .05). Sucking profiles of the preterm infant are significantly different from the full-term infant. These sucking profiles can be developed as a clinically useful tool for nursing practice.

Humans↗