Weight gain, feeding and eating in the first year of life of babies of smoking and non-smoking mothers.

Babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy tend to be born underweight but are at risk for pediatric obesity. Maternal feeding practices, maternal disordered eating, and child temperament were assessed as potential mediators of early weight gain in babies of smoking and non-smoking mothers. The BMIs of babies of 88 smoking and 107 non-smoking mothers were recorded at birth and reported one year later. Mothers self-reported on disordered eating and child feeding practices, and on their infants' temperament. Babies of smoking mothers had lower BMI at birth but not at age one. For babies of non-smoking but not for those of smoking mothers, BMI at birth predicted BMI at age one. Smoking mothers' disordered eating and pressure for children to eat predicted their babies' BMI at age one. In the non-smoking group only, there were significant correlations between babies' temperamental difficulties and babies' BMI at age one. In contrast to non-smoking mothers, smoking mothers tend to pressure their babies to eat, and not to feed them in response to their distress. This interim picture may provide insight into the transition of the children of smoking mothers from underweight newborns to children classified as overweight.

How to enhance nursing students' intention to use information technology: the first step before integrating it in nursing curriculum.

Today, in the 21st century, information technology has an important and critical role in the healthcare delivery system. Nursing educators already know and understand that they should integrate nursing informatics into the nursing curriculum to prepare future nurses for the new world of information technology. However, as of now, the core program of nursing studies in Israel does not put an emphasis on the skills required to properly use nursing informatics. The present research is the first step toward achieving this target by recognizing the importance of the human factor. The main goal is to examine the correlation between nursing students' attitudes and a number of variables: self-efficacy, threat, challenge, and innovativeness. This quantitative study used a convenience sample of nursing students in a bachelor's degree program at a large academic center in central Israel. Results show significant positive correlations between nursing students' attitudes to computer use and self-efficacy, a sense of challenge in using a computer, a sense of threat in using a computer, and previous experience with computers. The insights of these results will benefit nursing educators by helping them find creative ways to expose the students to the world of information technology and to improve the quality of future nurses.