Importance Assigned to Breastfeeding by Spanish Pregnant Women and Associated Factors: A Survey-Based Multivariate Linear Correlation Study.

Breastfeeding education, across all disciplines, is often inconsistent and lacking in expertise and confidence. However, recommendations from health professionals, the sociocultural environment, and previous knowledge and experiences significantly influence women's decision to breastfeed. This study aimed to identify factors that promote the assignment of greater importance to breastfeeding and associated practical benefits. This retrospective cross-sectional study included 276 participants who completed a self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed, and multivariate linear models were applied to identify factors influencing the importance assigned to breastfeeding. Most participants were married or in a relationship, were native Spaniards, had secondary or higher education, and had an average age of 32.6 years. Seventy percent met the physical activity recommendations, and 91% felt comfortable with their body image during pregnancy. The importance assigned to breastfeeding was high across various aspects, except for postpartum weight loss and body image. Group prenatal care was only significantly associated with the importance assigned to the breastfeeding technique (how to breastfeed). The obesogenic environment and the importance assigned to nutritional aspects and physical activity also turned out to be predictors, although not for all models. In our region, the educational strategy of antenatal care groups could contain gaps regarding the mother's health, which should be addressed in the future to improve results regarding the initiation and continuation of breastfeeding.

The Arabic psychosocial impact of assistive devices scale: Development, translation, and evaluation.

This paper describes the development, translation, and early evaluation of the Arabic Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale (AR-PIADS), an outcome measure instrument for the subjective impact of Assistive Technology on a person with a disabilities' quality of life. Developing the AR = PIADS instrument involved forward and backward translation by two independent teams of bilingual, Arabic-English speakers (n = 5) and a quality and usability review by a panel of people with disabilities (n = 18). The emergent version was evaluated with a group of experienced Arabic-speaking Assistive Technology users (n = 67) for its psychometric properties. Initial results demonstrate a favorable comparison for 16 of the 26 questionnaire items with scores recorded for the original, English language version. Internal consistency, measured using Cronbach's alpha, yielded a range of 0.97-0.99 for AR-PIADS while the new instrument's reliability was assessed using an intraclass correlation coefficient resulting in scores within the range of 0.86-0.97 for the overall instrument. Despite these positive results however, the translation process did highlight a number of challenges with language and cultural interpretation of the translated instrument. This suggests that further work is warranted to explore its utility in service provision.

Motion-based technology to support motor skills screening in developing children: A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Acquiring motor skills is fundamental for children's development since it is linked to cognitive development. However, access to early detection of motor development delays is limited. AIM: This review explores the use and potential of motion-based technology (MBT) as a complement to support and increase access to motor screening in developing children. METHODS: Six databases were searched following the PRISMA guidelines to search, select, and assess relevant works where MBT recognised the execution of children's motor skills. RESULTS: 164 studies were analysed to understand the type of MBT used, the motor skills detected, the purpose of using MBT and the age group targeted. CONCLUSIONS: There is a gap in the literature aiming to integrate MBT in motor skills development screening and assessment processes. Depth sensors are the prevailing technology offering the largest detection range for children from age 2. Nonetheless, the motor skills detected by MBT represent about half of the motor skills usually observed to screen and assess motor development. Overall, research in this field is underexplored. The use of multimodal approaches, combining various motion-based sensors, may support professionals in the health domain and increase access to early detection programmes.

Using motion capture technology to assess locomotor development in children.

Objective: Motor and cognitive development share biological background within the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Monitoring motor development is relevant to identify children at risk of developmental delays. However, access to timely assessment is prevented by its availability and cost. Affordable motion capture technology may provide an alternative to human assessment. Methods: MotorSense uses this technology to guide and assess children executing age-related developmental motor tasks. It incorporates advanced heuristics informed by pattern recognition principles based on the developmental sequences of motor skills. MotorSense was evaluated with 16 4-6 year-old children from a rural primary school. Results: A total of 506 jumps, 2415 steps and 831 hops were analysed. The analysis illustrates MotorSense Accuracy (MA), recognising jump forward (89.96%), jump high (83.34%), jump sideway (85.63%), hop (74.58%) and jog (92.34%), is as good as the sensor's precision. The analysis of the tasks' execution shows a high level of agreement between human and MotorSense's assessment on jump forward (91%), jump high (99%), jump sideway (93%), hop (94%) and jog (92%). Conclusions: MotorSense helps address the shortage of affordable technologies to support the assessment of motor development using graded age-related developmental motor tasks. Furthermore, it could contribute towards the tele-detection of motor developmental delays.

Unhealthy gestational weight gain: Are we neglecting inadequate gestational weight gain?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of unhealthy gestational weight gain and analyze the role of women´s knowledge about the recommendations, expectations, beliefs, counseling, and information provided by midwives as potential factors contributing to failure to meet recommendations. RESEARCH DESIGN/SETTING: A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed in a tertiary Hospital in Seville (Spain) between March and September 2019. A sample of 500 singleton pregnant women at or over 37 weeks of gestation completed a self-administered questionnaire during a prenatal visit. Gestational weight gain was categorized as healthy/excessive/inadequate, according to the Institute of Medicine, for 409 women. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analysis was performed. FINDINGS: Inadequate and excessive gestational weight gain were 33.4% and 33.9%, respectively. A multivariate model for excessive gestational weight gain showed pre-gestational body mass index was a risk factor, while exercise and believing the weight gain was healthy were protective factors. The model for inadequate gestational weight gain showed knowledge of recommendations was a protective factor while believing gestational weight was healthy was a risk factor. KEY CONCLUSIONS: Unhealthy gestational weight gain is common. Inadequate gain from women with healthy pre-pregnancy body mass index who believed their gain was healthy, was almost as common as excessive gestational weight gain. As shown by our predictive model beliefs regarding healthy gestational weight gain may act either as a protective factor, in the excessive gain model, or as a risk factor, in the inadequate gain model, depending on women´s pre-pregnancy body mass index and despite knowledge of the recommendations. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Inadequate weight gain, and not only excessive gain, should be properly addressed during pregnancy. Healthy gestational weight gain should be approached by midwives with a combination of one-to-one and group antenatal care, where believes regarding healthy gestational weight gain should be addressed. Midwives should remain alert as we may be facing a new trend: increasing numbers of women presenting with inadequate gestational weight gain; with negative health implications for a healthy population. We recommend that midwives pay attention to women with a healthy pre-pregnancy Body Mass Index and who believe that their weight gain is correct because this profile frequently had an inadequate gestational weight gain.

The Application of CSCL Scripts to Support Teaching and Learning for Children with Intellectual Disabilities.

This paper describes the application of collaboration scripts to guide social interaction behaviours of children with intellectual disabilities. The use of such scripts demonstrate potential as a means of creating CSCL environments that can be used to provide children with communication and social interaction impairments with a platform for learning and practicing such skills in a meaningful social context.

MotorSense: Using Motion Tracking Technology to Support the Identification and Treatment of Gross-Motor Dysfunction.

MotorSense is a motion detection and tracking technology that can be implemented across a range of environments to assist in detecting delays in gross-motor skills development. The system utilises the motion tracking functionality of Microsoft's Kinect™. It features games that require children to perform graded gross-motor tasks matched with their chronological and developmental ages. This paper describes the rationale for MotorSense, provides an overview of the functionality of the system and illustrates sample activities.