Earlier and Concurrent Food Insecurity Are Associated with Suboptimal Parenting in Early Childhood.

Background: Food insecurity (FI) is associated with poor health, suboptimal nutrition, and disadvantaged linguistic, social, and academic development for children. Given the prominent role that parents play in children's development, FI may be associated with parenting practices.

Objectives: We aimed to understand how FI and its change over time relate to parenting in early childhood.

Breast-feeding counselling mitigates the negative association of domestic violence on exclusive breast-feeding duration in rural Bangladesh. The MINIMat randomized trial.

Objective: To determine if exclusive breast-feeding counselling modifies the association of experience of any lifetime or specific forms of domestic violence (DV) on duration of exclusive breast-feeding (EBF).

Design: In the MINIMat trial pregnant women were randomized to receive either usual health messages (UHM) or usual health messages with breast-feeding counselling (BFC) in eight visits. During pregnancy (30 weeks), lifetime experience of any or specific forms of DV was measured.

Experiencing Lifetime Domestic Violence: Associations with Mental Health and Stress among Pregnant Women in Rural Bangladesh: The MINIMat Randomized Trial.

Background: Experience of domestic violence has negative mental health consequences for women. The association of cumulative and specific forms of domestic violence, particularly emotional violence and controlling behavior, with common mental disorders and stress has rarely been studied in pregnant women. The aim of this study is to evaluate associations of specific and multiple forms of lifetime domestic violence and controlling behavior with distress and cortisol level during pregnancy in rural Bangladeshi women.

Early prenatal food supplementation ameliorates the negative association of maternal stress with birth size in a randomised trial.

Low birthweight increases the risk of infant mortality, morbidity and poor development. Maternal nutrition and stress influence birth size, but their combined effect is not known. We hypothesised that an early-invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation programme could reduce the negative influence of prenatal maternal stress on birth size, and that effect would differ by infant sex.

Early participation in a prenatal food supplementation program ameliorates the negative association of food insecurity with quality of maternal-infant interaction.

Food insecurity is detrimental to child development, yet little is known about the combined influence of food insecurity and nutritional interventions on child development in low-income countries. We proposed that women assigned to an early invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation program could reduce the negative influence of food insecurity on maternal-infant interaction. A cohort of 180 mother-infant dyads were studied (born between May and October 2003) from among 3267 in the randomized controlled trial Maternal Infant Nutritional Interventions Matlab, which was conducted in Matlab, Bangladesh.

Micronutrient supplementation affects maternal-infant feeding interactions and maternal distress in Bangladesh.

Background: Good maternal-infant interaction is essential for optimal infant growth, health, and development. Although micronutrient malnutrition has been associated with poorer interaction, the effects of maternal micronutrient supplementation on interaction are unknown.

Objectives: We examined differences in maternal-infant feeding interaction between 3 maternal pre- and postpartum micronutrient supplementation groups that differed in iron dose and inclusion of multiple micronutrients and determined whether any differences observed were mediated by maternal distress.