BACKGROUND Prospective studies linking infant temperament, or behavioral style, to infant body composition are lacking. In this longitudinal study (3 to 18 months), we seek to examine the associations between two dimensions of infant temperament (distress to limitations and activity level) and two anthropometric indicators (weight-for-length z-scores (WLZ) and skin fold (SF) measures) in a popu...

BACKGROUND Social-emotional and behavioral problems are common in childhood. Early identification of these is important as it can lead to interventions which may improve the child's prognosis. In Dutch Preventive Child Healthcare (PCH), a new family-centered method has been implemented to identify these problems in early childhood. Its main features are consideration of the child's developmenta...

BACKGROUND Problems experienced within the first year of an infant's life can be precursors of later mental health conditions. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and continuity of difficult behaviors in infants at 3 and 6 months of age and the associations of these difficulties with biomedical and psychosocial factors. METHODS This study was a part of an ongoing prospectiv...

Avid mouthing, the propensity of infants to suck objects and put them in their mouths, is a pattern characteristic of the first 2-3 years of life, with its most intensive manifestation occurring during the first year. Although traditional accounts explain infant mouthing as a source of sensual gratification and/or environmental exploration, these proximate hypotheses are inconsistent with the h...