Effectiveness of distance education program on mothers' empowerment in exclusive breastfeeding: A randomized clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Mothers need the necessary skills to be empowered in successful breastfeeding. This study aimed to investigate effectiveness of the distance education program on the mothers' empowerment in exclusive breastfeeding. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A randomized clinical trial study was done on 72 nulliparous pregnant women 28-32 weeks with normal pregnancy. The qualified women were randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups based on the random-number table. The breastfeeding training packages were sent to women in the intervention group via Telegram every week from 32 until 37 weeks of gestation. The mothers' empowerment in breastfeeding (primary outcome) and the exclusive breastfeeding rate (secondary outcome) were assessed by questionnaires. RESULTS: Based on the repeated measured tests, although scores for all domains and also the total score of the mothers' empowerment in breastfeeding between two groups had increased during the study period, there was a significant difference between the increasing trends of the maternal empowerment domains in two groups (interaction P value <0.001). Also, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding (secondary outcome) at 6 months was significantly higher in the intervention group (81.8% and 57.1% in the intervention and control groups, respectively) (P = 0.028). CONCLUSION: Distance education could increase all domains of the mothers' empowerment in breastfeeding after delivery. Also, exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months after delivery was significantly higher in mothers who were receiving the distance education packages.

Efficacy of n-3 fatty acids supplementation on the prevention of pregnancy induced-hypertension or preeclampsia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The efficacy of n-3 fatty acids supplementation on the prevention of pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia remains unclear. The aim of study was to examine the effect of supplementation with EPA, and/or DHA, and/or ALA during pregnancy on the pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia. A systematic search was performed on Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science (WoS), Cochrane Library, and Google scholar, which covered the period between 1991 and 2018. The clinical trials with any control groups (i.e. placebo or other supplementation) were selected. The whole process of meta-analysis and data analysis was done using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2.0, Biostat). The searched keywords were: "Fatty Acids, Omega-3", "n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid" "Eicosapentaenoic Acid", "Docosahexaenoic Acids", "n-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid", "n-3 PUFAs", "alpha-Linolenic Acid", "fish oil", "Nuts", "nutrient", or their synonyms "pregnancy induced hypertension" and preeclampsia. In addition, some key journals, according to Scopus report and the references of the original and review articles, were manually searched for possible related studies. The meta-analysis of the 14 comparisons demonstrated that n-3 fatty acids supplementation played a protective role against the risk of preeclampsia (RR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.70-0.97; p = 0.024; I2 = 19.0%). The analysis of the 10 comparisons revealed that n-3 fatty acid supplements for pregnant women did not mitigate the risk of pregnancy-induced hypertension (RR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.90-1.07; p = 0.652; I2 = 0%). The n-3 fatty acid supplements are an effective strategy to prevent the incidence of preeclampsia in women with low-risk pregnancies.

Introducing a new framework for mapping subsidence vulnerability indices (SVIs): ALPRIFT.

Proof-of-concept (PoC) is presented for a new framework to serve as a proactive capability to mapping subsidence vulnerability of Shabestar plain of approximately 500km2 overlaying an important aquifer supporting a region renowned for diversity of agricultural products. This aquifer is one of 12 in East and West Azerbaijan provinces, Northwest Iran, which surround the distressed Lake Urmia, with its water table declined approximately 4m in between 2004 and 2014. The decline of water table in aquifers undermines their soil texture and structure by exposure to pressures under their weight and thereby induce or trigger land subsidence. Inspired by the DRASTIC framework to map intrinsic aquifer vulnerability to anthropogenic pollution, the paper introduces the ALPRIFT framework for subsidence, which comprises the seven data layers of Aquifer media (A), Land use (L), Pumping of groundwater, Recharge (R), aquifer thickness Impact (I), Fault distance (F) and decline of water Table (T). The paper prescribes rates to account for local variations and weights for the relative importance of the data layers. The proof-of-concept for ALPRIFT is supported by the correlation of Subsidence Vulnerability Indices (SVIs) with measured subsidence values, which renders a value of 0.5 but improves significantly to 0.86 when using fuzzy logic. Similar improvements are suggested by the ROC/AUC performance metric.