Association between support from a health professional and breastfeeding knowledge and practices among obese women: evidence from the Infant Practices Study II.

BACKGROUND: Obese women are less likely to initiate and continue breastfeeding. We described barriers to breastfeeding and examined the association between support from a health professional and breastfeeding knowledge and practices, by prepregnancy obesity status. METHODS: Using data from the Infant Feeding Practices Study II, a cohort of U.S. women (N = 2,997), we performed descriptive statistics to describe barriers to breastfeeding by prepregnancy obesity status. We conducted multivariable regression to examine the association of breastfeeding support from a physician or nonphysician health professional with knowledge of the recommended duration of breastfeeding, breastfeeding initiation, and breastfeeding duration, and whether breastfeeding support had different associations with outcomes by prepregnancy obesity status. Average marginal effects were calculated from regression models to interpret results as percentage-point changes. FINDINGS: Believing that formula was as good as breast milk was the most commonly cited reason for not initiating breastfeeding, and milk supply concerns were cited as reasons for not continuing breastfeeding. Physician breastfeeding support was associated with a 9.4 percentage-point increase (p < .05) in breastfeeding knowledge among obese women, although no increase was observed among nonobese women. Breastfeeding support from a physician or nonphysician health professional was associated with a significantly increased probability of breastfeeding initiation (8.5 and 12.5 percentage points, respectively) and breastfeeding for 6 months (12.5 and 8.4 percentage points, respectively), without differential associations by prepregnancy obesity. CONCLUSIONS: Support for exclusive breastfeeding is an important predictor of breastfeeding initiation and duration among obese and nonobese women. Health educational interventions tailored to obese women might improve their breastfeeding initiation and continuation.

A glycolipid adjuvant, 7DW8-5, enhances CD8+ T cell responses induced by an adenovirus-vectored malaria vaccine in non-human primates.

A key strategy to a successful vaccine against malaria is to identify and develop new adjuvants that can enhance T-cell responses and improve protective immunity. Upon co-administration with a rodent malaria vaccine in mice, 7DW8-5, a recently identified novel analog of α-galactosylceramide (α-GalCer), enhances the level of malaria-specific protective immune responses more strongly than the parent compound. In this study, we sought to determine whether 7DW8-5 could provide a similar potent adjuvant effect on a candidate human malaria vaccine in the more relevant non-human primate (NHP) model, prior to committing to clinical development. The candidate human malaria vaccine, AdPfCA (NMRC-M3V-Ad-PfCA), consists of two non-replicating recombinant adenoviral (Ad) vectors, one expressing the circumsporozoite protein (CSP) and another expressing the apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA1) of Plasmodium falciparum. In several phase 1 clinical trials, AdPfCA was well tolerated and demonstrated immunogenicity for both humoral and cell-mediated responses. In the study described herein, 25 rhesus macaques received prime and boost intramuscular (IM) immunizations of AdPfCA alone or with an ascending dose of 7DW8-5. Our results indicate that 7DW8-5 is safe and well-tolerated and provides a significant enhancement (up to 9-fold) in malaria-specific CD8+ T-cell responses after both priming and boosting phases, supporting further clinical development.