ABSTRACT
Purpose of Study It is understood that pregnant women are at higher risk for severe COVID-19 illness compared to nonpregnant people. Because of this, careful monitoring should be carried out. The purpose of this study was to identify the clinical characteristics, neonatal outcomes, and population demographics of COVID-positive pregnant women admitted to UMC Health Center in Lubbock, Texas. Methods Used We reviewed the charts of 35 pregnant patients with confirmed COVID-19 admitted to UMC Medical Center between April 12, 2020 and January 25, 2021. Results were reported with summative statistics such as mean and standard deviation along with percentages and counts for categorical values. Summary of Results The average patient age was 29 ± 4.8 years, and 71.43% of patients identified their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino origin. Average length of stay was 3.33 ± 3.56 days, and average number of weeks at delivery was 37.79 ± 2.27 weeks. No deaths were reported among the mothers, but there were three pregnancies that did not result in live birth. Notable findings were an increased rate of preterm birth (18.18%), an increased rate of NICU admission (16.67%), and an increased rate of gestational diabetes (13.89%) compared to national averages among pregnant women. Conclusions Many of our findings confirmed the existing literature concerning pregnancy outcomes among COVID-19 positive pregnant women, including relatively high preterm birth and NICU admission rates. The number of women who identified their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino was over-represented, which may be reflective of Lubbock's overall demographics or health inequities in West Texas. Furthermore, our gestational diabetes rate was higher than the national average, potentially reflective of Lubbock's high obesity rates. We recommend further research on the mechanisms of preterm birth in COVID-19 illness and ways to improve the health and healthcare equity of West Texas residents.
ABSTRACT
Several workshops use toolkits to engage children in the design of smart things, that is, everyday things like toys enhanced with computing devices and capabilities. In general, the toolkits focus on one design stage or another, e.g., ideation or programming. Few toolkits are created to guide children through an entire design process. This paper presents a toolkit for smart-thing design with children. It revolves around SNaP, a card-based board game for children. The toolkit serves to frame the entire design process and guide them through their exploration, ideation, programming and prototyping of their own smart things. By embracing action research, the toolkit was adopted in actions with children, namely, design workshops. Results of actions were reflected over by considering children's benefits, and they were used to make the toolkit evolve across cycles of action, reflection and development. The paper reports on the latest evolution cycles, ending with the 2020 cycle for continuing smart-thing design during COVID-19 times. The paper concludes with general reflections concerning action research and design with children, toolkits for framing smart-thing design with children, on-going and future work. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.