The Impact of Marriage on Breastfeeding Duration: Examining the Disproportionate Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Low-Income Communities.

Marriage promotes breastfeeding duration through economic and social supports. The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected marginalized communities and impacted women's employment and interpersonal dynamics. This study examined how marital status affects breastfeeding duration across socioeconomic and racially minoritized groups during COVID-19, aiming to inform social support strategies for vulnerable families in public health crises.

Dynamics of postnatal bone development and epiphyseal synostosis in the caprine autopod.

Bones develop to structurally balance strength and mobility. Bone developmental dynamics are influenced by whether an animal is ambulatory at birth ( precocial). Precocial species, such as goats, develop advanced skeletal maturity in utero, making them useful models for studying the dynamics of bone formation under mechanical load.

Elevated levels of exogenous prolactin promote inflammation at the maternal-fetal interface via the JAK2/STAT5B signaling axis.

The placenta is a unique organ with various immunological and endocrinological roles that modulate maternal and fetal physiology to promote maternal-fetal tolerance, pregnancy maintenance, and parturition at term. During pregnancy, the hormone prolactin (PRL) is constitutively secreted by the placenta and is necessary for implantation, progesterone support, fetal development, and overall immune modulation. While PRL is essential for pregnancy, studies suggest that elevated levels of serum PRL (hyperprolactinemia) are associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriage, preterm birth, and preeclampsia.

Loss of PKM2 dysregulates inflammatory signaling in the infarcted murine heart.

Inflammation and a metabolic shift from oxidative metabolism to glycolysis are common in the ischemic heart, the latter partly controlled by pyruvate kinase (muscle, PKM). We previously identified alternative splicing promoting the PKM2 isoform after myocardial infarction (MI). We examined the role of PKM2 physiological upregulation after MI, modeled by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery, using global PKM2 knockout (PKM2) mice.