The social and healthcare professional support drawn upon by women antenatally during the COVID-19 pandemic: A recurrent, cross-sectional, thematic analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To explore antenatal experiences of social and healthcare professional support during different phases of social distancing restriction implementation in the UK. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews were conducted via telephone or video-conferencing software between 13 July 2020 - 2 September 2020. Interviews were transcribed and a recurrent, cross-sectional, thematic analysis was conducted. PARTICIPANTS: Twelve antenatal women were interviewed during UK social distancing restrictions (Timepoint 1; T1) and a separate sample of twelve women were interviewed in the initial easing of these restrictions (Timepoint 2; T2). FINDINGS: T1 themes were: 'Maternity care as non-essential' and 'Pregnancy is cancelled'. T2 themes were: 'Technology is a polarised tool' and 'Clinically vulnerable, or not clinically vulnerable? That is the question'. KEY CONCLUSIONS: At T1, anxieties were ascribed to the exclusion of partners from routine care, and to perceived insensitivity and aggression from the public. For T2, insufficient Governmental transparency led to disillusionment, confusion, and anger. Covert workplace discrimination also caused distress at T2. Across timepoints: deteriorated mental wellbeing was attributed to depleted opportunities to interact socially and scaled back maternity care. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Recommendations are made to: protect maternal autonomy; improve quality of mental health and routine care signposting; prioritise parental community support in the re-opening of 'non-essential' services; prioritise the option for face-to-face appointments when safe and legal; and protecting the rights of working mothers.

Re-examination of Oostenbroek et al. (2016): evidence for neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion.

The meaning, mechanism, and function of imitation in early infancy have been actively discussed since Meltzoff and Moore's (1977) report of facial and manual imitation by human neonates. Oostenbroek et al. (2016) claim to challenge the existence of early imitation and to counter all interpretations so far offered. Such claims, if true, would have implications for theories of social-cognitive development. Here we identify 11 flaws in Oostenbroek et al.'s experimental design that biased the results toward null effects. We requested and obtained the authors' raw data. Contrary to the authors' conclusions, new analyses reveal significant tongue-protrusion imitation at all four ages tested (1, 3, 6, and 9 weeks old). We explain how the authors missed this pattern and offer five recommendations for designing future experiments. Infant imitation raises fundamental issues about action representation, social learning, and brain-behavior relations. The debate about the origins and development of imitation reflects its importance to theories of developmental science.