Smoking in Pregnancy and Parenthood: What is the Role of Depression, Anxiety and Nicotine Addiction?

This paper presents some of the findings from the Smoking in Pregnancy study of attitudes towards smoking among pregnant women, mothers of young children and their partners in East Surrey. As part of the study, respondents completed a General Health Questionnaire to identify mental health difficulties and, if they were smoking at the time of the study, they also completed the Fagerstrom nicotine addiction test. Eleven female respondents had high scores on the General Health Questionnaire, suggesting symptoms of depression, anxiety and/or social dysfunction for these women. There was no evidence that smokers were suffering from greater mental health difficulties than ex-smokers or non-smokers. However, the General Health Questionnaire scores of smokers were positively associated with their level of nicotine dependence. Furthermore, when General Health Questionnaire scores of all respondents were compared with self-reported health status there was a marked discrepancy suggesting under-reporting of symptoms by women.     

Breastmilk intake and growth in infants from two to ten months

Longitudinal measurements of breastmilk intake in 48 Cambridge infants showed that intake reached a peak of 824 g/24 h in boys and 741 g/24 h in girls in the third and fourth months, respectively. Regression analysis demonstrated that, in the early months, the infants' weight accounted for a major part of the variance in breastmilk intake. Infants in non-manual social classes received more breastmilk and started solids later than those in manual groups. In the early months weight gain showed a relative increase compared to growth standards, but later infancy was characterized by a progressive deceleration in weight and length gain. Adiposity, as measured by triceps skinfold thickness differed most markedly from growth charts and was only equivalent to the tenth standard centile at all ages. The lower skinfold thickness measurements are considered to be more appropriate to breastfed infants in general.     

Growth of dendrites in the optic tectum of the chick embryo following destruction of the eye primordium.

The consequences of depriving the optic tectum of axons from the contralateral eye have been studied in Golgi-impregnated brains from a staged series of chick embryos. Following enucleation at 2–5 days of age, measurements of dendritic length and the numbers of branches at all orders for three cell types were performed with an automated three-dimensional tracking system at various survival times. Dendritic lengths and the number of middle order branches of neurons from control animals, aged 12–14 days (stages 38–40), are greater than those from non-innervated embryos of the same ages. However, by Day 18 (stage 44), no significant differences in length or branching are seen between neurons from control and experimental embryos. Observations of these neurons revealed qualitative differences between experimental and control embryos. Growth cones, varicosities and filopodia, indicators of dendritic differentiation, are more commonly associated with neurons from control Day 12 and 14 embryos, than operated embryos of the same stages. However, at Days 16 and 18 these growth characteristics are more usually seen on neurons from deafferented embryos than from controls.The deleterious effects observed in experimental animals between Days 12 and 14 are presumably caused by the absence of optic fibers. The eventual growth during late embryogenesis, of the cells deprived of optic input, may reflect a trophic influence not acting in the earlier period.