Supplementation of vitamin B12 or folic acid on hemoglobin concentration in children 6-36 months of age: A randomized placebo controlled trial.

Background & Aims: The main objective of this report is to measure to what extent folate or vitamin B12 given daily for 6 months to young North Indian Children improves hemoglobin (Hb) concentration.

Methods: In a randomized placebo controlled trial in low-to-middle income neighborhoods in New Delhi, India, children were randomized into four groups in a 1:1:1:1 ratio and supplemented daily for 6 months with 2 RDAs of vitamin B12, folic acid, both, or placebo. All children with anemia at baseline were given iron supplementation daily for 2 months.

Maternal antenatal multiple micronutrient supplementation for long-term health benefits in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Multiple micronutrient supplementation for pregnant women reduces low birth weight and has been recommended in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to improve child survival, growth and health. We aimed to review the evidence from long-term follow-up studies of multiple micronutrient supplementation beginning in the later first or second trimester.

Methods: We searched systematically for follow-up reports from all trials in a 2015 Cochrane review of multiple micronutrient supplementation in pregnancy.

Home visits by community health workers to improve identification of serious illness and care seeking in newborns and young infants from low- and middle-income countries.

The objectives of this review were to evaluate the effect of home visits by trained community health workers (CHWs) to successfully identify newborns and young infants (up to 59 days of age) with serious illness and improve care seeking from a health facility. The authors searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE and EMBASE. Abstracts of all articles were read by two authors independently and relevant articles selected.

Home-based neonatal care by community health workers for preventing mortality in neonates in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

The objective of this review is to assess the effect of home-based neonatal care provided by community health workers (CHWs) for preventing neonatal, infant and perinatal mortality in resource-limited settings with poor access to health facility-based care. The authors conducted a systematic review, including meta-analysis and meta-regression of controlled trials. The data sources included electronic databases, with a hand search of reviews, abstracts and proceedings of conferences to search for randomized, or cluster randomized, controlled trials evaluating the effect of home-based neonatal care provided by CHWs for preventing neonatal, infant and perinatal mortality.

Reducing calls missed by the hospital telephone exchange from 26% to less than 10.

A hospital's telephone exchange is the first point of contact for patients and their attendants to take appointments, to collect healthcare related information and to connect to the hospital in case of emergencies. At Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research the doctors, patients, and attendants often complained about the inefficiency of the hospital exchange. In February 2012, a doctor raised her concern of calls not being picked up at the exchange with the senior management and a QI project was initiated to tackle the problem.

Are village health sanitation and nutrition committees fulfilling their roles for decentralised health planning and action? A mixed methods study from rural eastern India.

Background: In India, Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committees (VHSNCs) are participatory community health forums, but there is little information about their composition, functioning and effectiveness. Our study examined VHSNCs as enablers of participatory action for community health in two rural districts in two states of eastern India - West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and Kendujhar, in Odisha.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 169 VHSNCs and ten qualitative focus group discussions with purposively selected better and poorer performing committees, across the two states.

Associations of vitamin D status, bone health and anthropometry, with gross motor development and performance of school-aged Indian children who were born at term with low birth weight.

Objectives: There is little information regarding motor development of children born at term with low birth weight (LBW), a group that constitutes a large proportion of children in South Asia. We used data from infancy and at school age from a LBW cohort to investigate children's motor performance using causal inference.

Design: Cross-sectional follow-up study.

Mortality and Other Outcomes in Relation to First Hour Fluid Resuscitation Rate: A Systematic Review.

Objective: To determine the effect of different regimen of first hour fluid administration rates on mortality and severe consequences of impaired circulation in 2 to 60 months old children with impaired circulation.

Design: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Data Sources: Various databases including PubMed, Cochrane Library and EMBASE were searched.

Effects of vitamin D supplementation in infancy on growth, bone parameters, body composition and gross motor development at age 3-6 years: follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: The long-term effects of infant vitamin D supplementation and status are unclear since there have been few controlled intervention trials and these have been small and contradictory. The Delhi Infant Vitamin D Supplementation (DIVIDS) trial found that supplementation of low-birthweight term infants with one recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D from 1 week to 6 months of age resulted in increased length and weight at 6 months. In the DIVIDS-2 study we followed up the DIVIDS children, now aged 3-6 years, to determine longer-term effects.

Madness and Rulers: Events in Coorg and London in 1810, as observed by the Hon. Arthur Cole, the resident at Mysore.

What happens if a King becomes mentally ill? Excerpts from the personal papers of Arthur Henry Cole, Resident to the Kingdom of Mysore in 1809, open up fascinating insights into the madness of rulers, in neighboring Coorg and faraway London, and ways in which different societies responded to this. Musings on legal capacity and restrictions imposed on account of insanity, as well as migration and ennui in imperial colonies inevitably follow.

Association between maternal age at childbirth and child and adult outcomes in the offspring: a prospective study in five low-income and middle-income countries (COHORTS collaboration).

Background: Both young and advanced maternal age is associated with adverse birth and child outcomes. Few studies have examined these associations in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) and none have studied adult outcomes in the offspring. We aimed to examine both child and adult outcomes in five LMICs.

Participatory women's groups and counselling through home visits to improve child growth in rural eastern India: protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Background: Child stunting (low height-for-age) is a marker of chronic undernutrition and predicts children's subsequent physical and cognitive development. Around one third of the world's stunted children live in India. Our study aims to assess the impact, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of a community intervention with a government-proposed community-based worker to improve growth in children under two in rural India.

Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on Blood Pressure: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis Incorporating Individual Patient Data.

Importance: Low levels of vitamin D are associated with elevated blood pressure (BP) and future cardiovascular events. Whether vitamin D supplementation reduces BP and which patient characteristics predict a response remain unclear.

Objective: To systematically review whether supplementation with vitamin D or its analogues reduce BP.

Psychological symptoms and medical responses in nineteenth-century India.

The article documents medical approaches to mental illness in mid- to late-nineteenth-century India through examining the Indian Medical Gazette and other medical accounts. By the late nineteenth century, psychiatry in Europe moved from discussions around asylum-based care to a nuanced and informed debate about the nature of mental symptoms. This included ideas on phrenology and craniometry, biological and psycho-social causes, physical and drug treatments, many of which travelled to India.