Barriers to accessing and receiving antenatal care: Findings from interviews with Australian women experiencing disadvantage.

Aim: To identify the barriers associated with inadequate antenatal attendance by disadvantaged women in Australia and to further explore how these barriers are experienced by this population group.

Design: A qualitative descriptive study utilizing semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis.

Methods: Interviews were conducted with 11 pregnant women who self-identified as experiencing disadvantage, purposively sampled from a local government area of Victoria, Australia, characterized by socio-economic disadvantage.

Early Childhood Education Participation: A Mixed-Methods Study of Parent and Provider Perceived Barriers and Facilitators.

Participation in high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) benefits children and society. Policy recognition of this manifests through government subsidy strategies to increase ECEC access in the years immediately preceding school. Yet despite this action, many children do not receive the recommended amount.

Systematic review: An exploration of core componentry characterizing effective sustained nurse home visiting programs.

Aims: To identify the core components or potential 'active ingredients' of sustained nurse home visiting (SNHV) programs that have demonstrated positive effects on maternal or child health, psychosocial development, or self-sufficiency outcomes among disadvantaged families in high-income countries.

Design: Systematic review with narrative summary.

Data Sources: Programs were identified from searches of several reputable evidence clearing houses and the following bibliographic databases: Medline, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsycINFO, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials.

A Novel 3-Part Approach to Tackle the Problem of Health Inequities in Early Childhood.

The first 5 years of a child's life are crucial in laying the foundation for their health and developmental trajectory into adulthood. These early years are especially influenced by the surrounding environments in which children live and grow. A large international body of evidence demonstrates that children who experience disadvantage tend to fall increasingly behind over time.

Systematic review: Effects of sustained nurse home visiting programs for disadvantaged mothers and children.

Aims: To systematically evaluate published experimental studies of sustained nurse home visiting (SNHV) programs. This review summarizes the evidence and identifies gaps in the literature to inform practice, policy, and future research.

Design: Restricted systematic review with narrative summary.

Sleep problems, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and domains of health-related quality of life: bidirectional associations from early childhood to early adolescence.

Study Objectives: To examine longitudinal, bidirectional associations among behavioral sleep problems, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and domains of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) from early childhood to adolescence in a population sample of Australian children.

Method: Data were drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a national prospective cohort study with 4983 children participating in the Kindergarten cohort. Data were collected when children were aged 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, and 12-13 years.

Brief evidence-based interventions for universal child health services: a restricted evidence assessment of the literature.

Background: Universal child health services (UCHS) provide an important pragmatic platform for the delivery of universal and targeted interventions to support families and optimize child health outcomes. We aimed to identify brief, evidence-based interventions for common health and developmental problems that could be potentially implemented in UCHS.

Methods: A restricted evidence assessment (REA) of electronic databases and grey literature was undertaken covering January 2006 to August 2019.

Health service utilisation and unmet healthcare needs of Australian children from immigrant families: A population-based cohort study.

Compared with most other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, information about the patterns of health service use for children from immigrant families in Australia is currently limited, and internationally, data on unmet healthcare needs are scarce. This study aims to examine the distribution of health service utilisation and unmet healthcare needs for immigrant children aged 10-11 years in Australia. We drew on data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children Birth (B; n = 5,107) and Kindergarten (K; n = 4,983) cohorts.

Potential of 'stacking' early childhood interventions to reduce inequities in learning outcomes.

Background: Early childhood interventions are critical for reducing child health and development inequities. While most research focuses on the efficacy of single interventions, combining multiple evidence-based strategies over the early years of a child's life may yield greater impact. This study examined the association between exposure to a combination of five evidence-based services from 0 to 5 years on children's reading at 8-9 years.

School-Age Outcomes of Early Intervention for Preterm Infants and Their Parents: A Randomized Trial.

Objective: To examine the child and parental outcomes at school age of a randomized controlled trial of a home-based early preventative care program for infants born very preterm and their caregivers.

Methods: At term-equivalent age, 120 infants born at a gestational age of <30 weeks were randomly allocated to intervention (n = 61) or standard care (n = 59) groups. The intervention included 9 home visits over the first year of life focusing on infant development, parental mental health, and the parent-infant relationship.

The contribution of visual processing to academic achievement in adolescents born extremely preterm or extremely low birth weight.

Children born extremely preterm (EP, <28 weeks) and/or extremely low birth weight (ELBW, <1000 g) have more academic deficiencies than their term-born peers, which may be due to problems with visual processing. The aim of this study is to determine (1) if visual processing is related to poor academic outcomes in EP/ELBW adolescents, and (2) how much of the variance in academic achievement in EP/ELBW adolescents is explained by visual processing ability after controlling for perinatal risk factors and other known contributors to academic performance, particularly attention and working memory. A geographically determined cohort of 228 surviving EP/ELBW adolescents (mean age 17 years) was studied.

Long-term effect of high-dose supplementation with DHA on visual function at school age in children born at <33 wk gestational age: results from a follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Children born preterm are at risk of visual-processing impairments. Several lines of evidence have contributed to the rationale that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation of preterm infants may improve outcomes in visual processing.

Objective: The aim was to determine whether at 7 y of age children who were born very preterm and who received a high-DHA diet have better visual-processing outcomes than do infants fed a standard-DHA diet.

The long-term outcome of extremely preterm (<28 weeks' gestational age) infants with and without severe retinopathy of prematurity.

Background: Severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is associated with an increased risk for ophthalmologic morbidity, but the long-term impact in other domains is less clear. The aim of the current study was to determine whether severe ROP was related to poorer visual, cognitive, and educational outcomes in a representative sample of EP adolescents, and whether this persisted after adjusting for confounding neonatal risk factors.

Method: One hundred and eighty extremely preterm (EP; <28 weeks) adolescents (17-18 years) were assessed on a range of neurodevelopmental measures, including visual processing, IQ, visual learning, visual-motor integration, and academic achievement.

Neural correlates of impaired vision in adolescents born extremely preterm and/or extremely low birthweight.

Background: Adolescents born extremely preterm (EP; <28 weeks' gestation) and/or extremely low birthweight (ELBW; <1000 g) experience high rates of visual impairments, however the potential neural correlates of visual impairments in EP/ELBW adolescents require further investigation. This study aimed to: 1) compare optic radiation and primary visual cortical structure between EP/ELBW adolescents and normal birthweight controls; 2) investigate associations between perinatal factors and optic radiation and primary visual cortical structure in EP/ELBW adolescents; 3) investigate associations between optic radiation and primary visual cortical structure in EP/ELBW adolescents and the odds of impaired vision.

Methods: 196 EP/ELBW adolescents and 143 controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging at a mean age of 18 years.

Visual memory and learning in extremely low-birth-weight/extremely preterm adolescents compared with controls: a geographic study.

Background: Contemporary data on visual memory and learning in survivors born extremely preterm (EP; <28 weeks gestation) or with extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1,000 g) are lacking.

Methods: Geographically determined cohort study of 298 consecutive EP/ELBW survivors born in 1991 and 1992, and 262 randomly selected normal-birth-weight controls.

Results: Visual learning and memory data were available for 221 (74.

Contribution of brain size to IQ and educational underperformance in extremely preterm adolescents.

Objectives: Extremely preterm (EP) survivors have smaller brains, lower IQ, and worse educational achievement than their term-born peers. The contribution of smaller brain size to the IQ and educational disadvantages of EP is unknown. This study aimed (i) to compare brain volumes from multiple brain tissues and structures between EP-born (< 28 weeks) and term-born (≥ 37 weeks) control adolescents, (ii) to explore the relationships of brain tissue volumes with IQ and basic educational skills and whether this differed by group, and (iii) to explore how much total brain tissue volume explains the underperformance of EP adolescents compared with controls.

Attention difficulties in a contemporary geographic cohort of adolescents born extremely preterm/extremely low birth weight.

The aim of this study was to evaluate attention difficulties in a contemporary geographic cohort of adolescents born extremely preterm (EP, <28 weeks' gestation) or extremely low birth weight (ELBW, birth weight <1000 g). The EP/ELBW group included 228 adolescents (mean age = 17.0 years) born in Victoria, Australia in 1991 and 1992.

Visual processing in adolescents born extremely low birth weight and/or extremely preterm.

Background And Objectives: Ocular growth and development differs between preterm and term-born infants and may cause long-term negative consequences for visual function, but contemporary data on long-term visual outcomes in representative samples of the highest risk extremely low birth weight (ELBW, <1000 g birth weight) or extremely preterm (EP, <28 weeks' gestation) survivors are lacking. Our objective was to compare visual functioning between ELBW/EP and normal birth weight (NBW, >2499 g birth weight) control adolescents.

Methods: Geographically determined cohort study of 228 consecutive ELBW/EP survivors born in the state of Victoria in 1991 and 1992, and 166 randomly selected NBW controls assessed between 14 and 20 years of age.

Docosahexaenoic acid and visual functioning in preterm infants: a review.

Preterm children are at risk for a number of visual impairments which can be important for a range of other more complex visuocognitive tasks reliant on visual information. Despite the relatively high incidence of visual impairments in this group there are no good predictors that would allow early identification of those at risk for adverse outcomes. Several lines of evidence suggest that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation for preterm infants may improve outcomes in this area.