Development and evaluation of a newborn care education programme in primiparous mothers in Nepal.

Background: the health and survival of newborns depend on high levels of attention and care from caregivers. The growth and development of some infants are unhealthy because of their mother's or caregiver's lack of knowledge or the use of inappropriate or traditional child-rearing practices that may be harmful.

Objective: to develop a newborn care educational programme and evaluate its impact on infant and maternal health in Nepal.

Translation and validation of the Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale in Nepali language.

Background: a mother׳s lack of confidence in the early postnatal period may negatively influence their ability to care for their infant. Parenting confidence contributes to the parent-infant relationship and other aspects of infant development. The Karitane Parenting Confidence Scale is a 15-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure parents' subjective confidence in their parenting abilities, or 'perceived parenting self-efficacy', and is designed for mothers with infants aged 0-12 months.

Nepalese primiparous mothers' knowledge of newborn care.

A cross-sectional study was carried out to explore the knowledge level of newborn care and to investigate the relationship between newborn-care knowledge and selected demographic variables among primiparous mothers. It was carried in outpatient department of a maternity and women's hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal with 276 primiparous mothers between 38 and 42 weeks of gestation. Data were collected during the antenatal period with using two instruments: the Newborn-care Knowledge Questionnaire and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults.

Effect of passive smoking using maternal and neonatal salivary cotinine measurements.

Background: In Japan, the rate of passive smoking among pregnant women is 52.7%, and smokers are usually their husbands (80.8%).

Atrial fibrillation induced by applying acetylcholine to subadventitial layer of pulmonary vein in normal canine heart.

Objectives: We determined whether acetylcholine (Ach) application to the pulmonary vein (PV) wall could induce AF and clarified its mechanisms, and determined whether circumferential PV radiofrequency ablation (CPVA) could prevent Ach-induced AF in canine hearts.

Methods: Thirty seven beagle dogs were used for the study. Ach was injected into the subadventitial layer of the left superior PV (LSPV), at different distance from the LSPV-left atrium junction (LSPV-LA-J) to locate AF initiation.

Circadian distribution of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation in patients with and without structural heart disease in untreated state.

Background: This study aimed to compare the circadian distribution of the onset, maintenance and termination of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) between structural and non-structural heart diseases (SHD and NSHD, respectively) in the untreated state.

Subjects And Methods: We included 217 patients with 338 PAF (79 SHD patients with 131 episodes; 138 NSHD patients with 207 episodes). The probabilities for the onset, maintenance and termination of PAF for each hour were analyzed using Holter monitoring data and harmonic models being fitted into a cosinusoidal function.

The relationship between the parturient's positions and perceptions of labor pain intensity.

Background: While the effect of the maternal position on reducing labor pain has been studied, the data presented to date have not been conclusive.

Objectives: To determine if maternal position reduced the intensity of labor pain during cervical dilatation from 6 to 8 centimeters.

Method: Pain intensity was measured using the visual analogue scale (VAS) on 39 primiparous and 19 multiparous women (N = 58) who alternately assumed the sitting and supine positions for 15 minutes during cervical dilatation from 6 to 8 centimeters.