[A sampling epidemiological study of infant health in relation to the type of feeding]. / Un'indagine epidemiologica campionaria sulla salute dei lattanti in relazione al tipo di allattamento.

An epidemiological study has been carried out an the scholastic population of L'Aquila (Abruzzo). This study had the aim of verifying possible correlations between feeding procedures and the outbreak of illnesses whose causes are unknown. The information was registered with the collaboration of the Medical Scholastic Service, in the period of May-June in 1988-1989, interviewing four hundred and seventy-seven mothers of students, the information regards the temporary period of 1973-1985. The results of their elaboration are as follows: 75.9% of babies took breast milk at birth and in following months breast feeding was the most frequent (34.8%). The procedure breast feeding-bottle feeding was carried out in 30.4% of cases and exclusively bottle feeding in 22.4%. The study has permitted to discover thirteen cases of illnesses whose cause are unknown among which a case of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) in a newborn baby fed till eighteen weeks with breast milk and through twenty days before dying with undiluted cows milk. These illnesses happened in 13.4% of babies fed by bottle milk and diluted with running water; in 7.7% by cow's milk diluted with running water and in 4.3% by undiluted cow milk. Some Authors have suspected a relationship between bacterial endotoxin introduced by diet and baby illnesses whose causes are unknown. For this a quantitative determination of such substances is necessary in baby diets.

[Type of newborn infant feeding and an epidemiological approach to SIDS]. / Uno studio sul tipo di allattamento del neonato e approccio epidemiologico alla SIDS.

There are many etiopathogenetic theories that hypothesize several causes or factors supporting the onset of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Among the SIDS factors there are bacterial endotoxins which can be conveyed into the organism in large amounts, by contaminated milk. An epidemiologic research was carried out on a sample of 258 mothers of children and boys attending some schools of L'Aquila district in 1988. It supplied data on the nursing procedures and about diseases with unknown aetiology related to nursing periods. The results obtained refer to the years 1974-84: 33.6% of sample was normal breast-fed infants. We found increasing percentage values referred to bottle-fed infants the first month of life (45% of sample in 1984); 22.5% of sample was bottle-fed infants only. Cows' milk was less and less used and it reached the 5% value in 1984. A case of hypothetic near-SIDS (0.4%) was found and another case which can be defined at SIDS-risk. It concerns two bottle-fed infants whose milk was diluted with simple drinking water. In addition a case of SIDS in a family was found: she was a girl aged 23 weeks who had begun drinking neat cows' milk only twenty days before the disease.

[Arterial pressure in a student population in Aquila]. / Pressione arteriosa in collettivita' scolari di L'Aquila.

The preliminary data of a policentric study for the determination of the blood-pressure values and the risk factors associated with high-blood pressure are reported for establishing a prospective epidemiological research. This research involved 258 children attending nursery, elementary-school in the city of L'Aquila. The weight, height, the triceps-skin-fold, the heart-rate, the blood systolic and diastolic-pressure (fifth tone) were examined. Furthermore the parent who accompanied the child was given a questionnaire in order to define: the general information concerning the child and the parent, the family anamnesis concerning the pathology correlated to the high-blood pressure, the child's weight at birth and the thronging-index (the ratio of the number of the family members with respect to the number of the habitable rooms). The obtained data show, especially for the PAS, higher blood-pressure values (greater than 95. percentile) in the grown-up subjects and in the male. The close correlation between the heart rate, BMI and the weight at birth, on one hand, and the blood-pressure values on the other hand, show, besides the validity of the research carried out, the connection between the blood-pressure situation and other physiological, paraphysiological and pathological factors. In conclusion, observing that a considerably high percentage of subjects with high-blood pressure values (5.8%' is one important result, especially for the future implications that it can have; it has to be defined if this situation has a prediction value of constant high-blood pressure in the adult and in what measure the examined factors influence the stabilization of this pathological situation.

Application of a simplified method for recovery of Yersinia enterocolitica from surface waters.

Yersinia enterocolitica was recovered from surface water by a simplified method: samples were taken by means of the Moore tampon and, after a short, warm preincubation in peptone-sorbitol-bile salts broth, were quickly passed to an alkali solution. Immediately after this, samples were directly plated on MacConkey agar. Y. enterocolitica was isolated from 60% of the water samples, and the identification confirmation of the strains chosen was 100%.