"Something is wrong with your milk": Qualitative study of maternal dietary restriction and beliefs about infant colic.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate new mothers' perceptions about the role of maternal diet in infant fuss-cry behaviour, and to explore patterns of food restriction in breastfeeding women. DESIGN: Qualitative study. SETTING: Calgary, Alta. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-one mothers of healthy singleton infants aged 6 months and younger. METHODS: Focus groups and one-on-one interviews with a semistructured interview guide, followed by content analysis. MAIN FINDINGS: Most respondents believed that infant cry-fuss behaviour was related to abdominal pain linked to feeding and had eliminated items from their diet in an attempt to change infant behaviour. Typical targets of elimination were caffeine, cruciferous vegetables (eg, broccoli and cabbage), garlic and onions, spicy foods, gluten, and beans. Women commonly viewed elimination diets as an extension of neutral or benign choices made during pregnancy, even when it led to extreme diet restrictions. Participants reported feeling appraised by society for their infant-feeding choices, and often harshly judged. Many women reported feeling confused by conflicting sources of reliable information on breastfeeding and preferred advice from trusted friends and family to that from health care providers or the Internet. CONCLUSION: The breastfeeding women in this study believed that maternal diet influenced infant cry-fuss behaviour, in spite of scientific evidence demonstrating the contrary. An understandable desire for a calm baby, as well as to be favourably judged by friends and family, can drive breastfeeding women to restrict their diet, often to the point of hardship.

Sociodemographic Correlates of Clinical Laboratory Test Expenditures in a Major Canadian City.

OBJECTIVES: The increasing cost of clinical laboratory testing is a challenge in our health care system. This study aims to calculate the annual clinical laboratory test costs attributed to patients in a major Canadian city and to correlate them to their sociodemographic variables. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study involving patients who received clinical chemistry, hematology, and microbiology tests in 2011 in Calgary, Canada (n = 610,409). Test volumes were obtained from a laboratory informatics database. Total expenditures per patient were calculated using estimated test costs and then combined with the 2011 Canadian Census Household Survey results to infer sociodemographic correlates. RESULTS: While more women received laboratory testing (58.4%), men had slightly higher testing costs per capita. Except for Chinese, visible minority and Aboriginal populations had higher testing costs. There was an inverse correlation between testing cost and household income, and accordingly, higher costs were found in those without postsecondary education and the unemployed. Furthermore, hotspot mapping revealed the geographical distribution of patient test costs within the city. CONCLUSIONS: There is variation in testing costs for patients among different sociodemographic variables.