Lactating rats exhibit stable individual differences in pup licking/grooming (LG) over the first week postpartum. Such naturally occurring variations in maternal behavior are associated with differences in estrogen-inducible oxytocin receptors in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) of the hypothalamus. We compared levels of ER alpha and ER beta mRNA in the MPOA of lactating High or Low LG mothers a...

Lactating rats exhibit stable individual differences in pup licking/grooming (LG) over the first week postpartum. Such naturally occurring variations in maternal behavior are associated with differences in estrogen-inducible oxytocin receptors in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) of the hypothalamus. We compared levels of ER and ER mRNA in the MPOA of lactating High or Low LG mothers as well as i...

BACKGROUND The occurrence of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in milk, especially breast milk, is a valuable biomarker for exposure determination to aflatoxin B(1) (AFB(1)). In the present study, the risk of exposure to AFM(1) in infants fed breast milk was investigated. METHODS An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for the analysis of AFM(1) in breast milk samples from 132 lactating mothe...

VIDEO ABSTRACT Motherhood is associated with different forms of physiological alterations including transient hormonal changes and brain plasticity. The underlying impact of these changes on the emergence of maternal behaviors and sensory processing within the mother's brain are largely unknown. By using in vivo cell-attached recordings in the primary auditory cortex of female mice, we discover...

Objective. To examine the association of self-efficacy, perception of milk production, and lactating women's use of medication prescribed to increase breast milk in a cohort of 18-40-year-old mothers over six months. Methods. Mothers (n = 76) attending community clinics completed the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale and the Humenick/Hill Lactation Scale, a measure of perceived milk production,...

Refining food recipes with orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) has the potential to improve dietary intake of vitamin A. The objectives of this study were to utilize OFSP in the development of two composite bread types and to assess their contribution to dietary intake of vitamin A using the dietary reference intake of lactating mothers. Two composite OFSP-wheat flour bread recipes-vita butter b...

Sublethal parasites are often assumed to have no detrimental effects on their host. However, the sublethal intestinal nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus affects both the morphology and the physiology of its laboratory mouse (Mus musculus) host and therefore has the potential to affect host life history. The objectives of the present study were to determine (1) whether lactating and non-lactatin...

.....................................................................................................................................7 Introduction .............................................................................................................................10 Preface: Plasticity in the Mammalian Brain .................................................................................

Background: Breast milk is important for the overall well-being of infants. Although lactation is relatively robust in the face of poor nutrition, the implication of poor nutrition on non-nutritive factors in breast milk is inconclusive. Objective: This study was designed to find associations between nutritional and immune factors in maternal blood and breast milk with the aim to improve the ne...