Infant feeding intentions of Scottish adolescents.

Despite its health benefits, only 63% of women in Scotland will attempt to breastfeed. Our aim was to investigate future feeding intentions and attitudes in adolescents in the south east of Scotland. Of the 757 adolescents questioned, 78.8% of girls (n = 430) and 61.6% of boys (n = 130) stated an intention to breastfeed or to encourage their partner to breastfeed. Knowledge of being breastfed as an infant was the only factor associated with a higher Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Score and proportion that either intend to breastfeed or support breastfeeding in the future.

Sleep-disordered breathing and upper airway size in pregnancy and post-partum.

Sleep-disordered breathing and snoring are common in pregnancy. The aim of this study was to determine whether pregnancy was associated with upper airway narrowing. One-hundred females in the third trimester of pregnancy were recruited and 50 agreed to be restudied 3 months after delivery. One-hundred nonpregnant females were also recruited. Upper airway dimensions were measured using acoustic reflection. Snoring was less common in nonpregnant (17%) than pregnant females (41%; odds ratio (OR) 3.34; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.65-6.74) and returned to nonpregnant levels after delivery (18%; OR 0.15; 95% CI 0.06-0.40). Pregnant females had significantly smaller upper airways than nonpregnant females at the oropharyngeal junction when seated (mean difference 0.12; 95% CI 0.008-0.25), and smaller mean pharyngeal areas in the seated (mean difference 0.14; 95% CI 0.001-0.28), supine (mean difference 0.11; 95% CI 0.01-0.22) and lateral postures (mean difference 0.13; 95% CI 0.02-0.24) compared with the nonpregnant females. Pregnant females had smaller mean pharyngeal areas compared with post-partum in the seated (mean difference 0.18; 95% CI 0.02-0.32), supine (mean difference 0.20; 95% CI 0.06-0.35) and lateral postures (mean difference 0.26; 95% CI 0.12-0.39). In conclusion, this study confirmed increased snoring and showed narrower upper airways during the third trimester of pregnancy.