Background: Breastmilk is the natural and safest first food for the newborn. It has nutritional, immunological, behavioural, and offers mother-infant bonding. Objective: The objective of the study was to explore the knowledge, practice, and attitudes of mothers towards breastfeeding. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among conveniently selected 950 postnatal mothers attending the immunization clinic and paediatric OPD with their children for vaccination and treatment of other minor illnesses from April 2018 to November 2019 in selected hospitals of Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. Mothers were face-to-face interviewed using structured knowledge, preference, practices, and attitude questionnaires about newborn breastfeeding. Tools were validated and tested for reliability. Results: The average knowledge scores (11.72±1.78) indicated that mothers have good knowledge about breastfeeding. Most mothers (81.45%) fed their babies with colostrum, and 82% were exclusively breastfeeding. It was also reported about top feeds like honey, coconut water, grape water, ghuttee, lactogen among about 20% of the participants. The average score of the Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS) (58.11±6.44) lay in the range of neutral attitudes related to breastfeeding practices among the mothers. Conclusion: Breastfeeding practices were adequate among many mothers, but there were practices of throwing colostrum, topfeed baby and early initiation of weaning. Thus, it is necessary to create awareness among the mothers and their families about the correct practices of feeding the newborn baby; eventually, the attitude will change.
Background
Post severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI), axonal alterations lead to myelin loss and its degeneration. In the recovery phase, numerous intermingled biochemical pathways involving complex inflammatory reactions cloud the understanding of this yet undiscerned process that also varies with agonal period. In cases with dubious histories, approximating the survival time can be challenging, and expression levels of characteristic markers may aid forensic experts in the same.
Methods
This exploratory study recruited 100 samples—68 sTBI, 22 non-TBI and 10 age- and sex-matched control samples. Male:female ratio was 87:13. Histochemical staining using H&E was used to characterize myelination pattern, and IHC of GFAP and CD-68 were performed to assess astroglial and microglial reactions with respect to survival time in specific sites.
Result
Among sTBI, non-TBI and control recruits, sTBI patients depicted significant myelination abnormalities, astroglial proliferation and microglial reaction and varying with survival time. Non-TBI and control samples depicted nearly similar profiles.
Conclusion
In order to untangle the complex mesh of biochemical responses, nuanced research on individual factors (both pre- and post mortem) with regard to specific site and survival time are warranted. Standardizing experimental data and converting it into empirical data shall aid forensic experts in suggesting approximate agonal period.
Aim Different deposition patterns and grading systems used to define and identify DAI remain discordant and to date these are a challenge in clinical practice. Our main objective was to study the post-mortem axonal changes and develop a grading system to identify DAI on the basis of histopathological and immunoreactive β-amyloid precursor protein (β-APP) observations in severe TBI cases.
Methods Prospective study with 35 decedents with sTBI (GCS score ≤ 8) was conducted and samples were collected from three different sites–corpus callosum, thalamus and brain stem. Serial sections from each site were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), and immunohistochemistry (IHC) of β-APP.
Results We developed a grading system based on histopathological characteristics to assess the overall damage of axonal injury. We found maximum histopathological changes in cases with prolonged stay. Corpus callosum showed maximum changes in both gradings. Curiously, we also detected axonal swellings with H&E staining. Usually neglected, the thalamus also showed significant histopathological and immunoreactive changes for sTBI.
Conclusion Our study based on histopathological and β-APP scoring system to define and identify DAI thus facilitates accurate diagnosis of DAI post mortem, which has forensic implications, and may further contribute toward survival and improvement of quality of life of sTBI patients.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.