Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2.5. Examination of Neurological Reﬂexes. The pups were given a battery of tests to evaluate the development of neu- rological reﬂexes. This occurred every morning beginning at 9:00 AM from PND 1 to PND 21 and by the same assessor. The pups were tested in the same room as the dam during separation, under soft white light. The righting reﬂex was considered positive if the pup turned over to regain a normal posture within 2.5 s of being placed on its back on a hard ﬂat surface. The acoustic startle test was positive if a loud, sharp, buzzer elicited a sudden extension of head and limbs. A positive cliﬀ avoidance test was recorded if the pup turned and crawled away when placed on a bench top with its forepaws extending over the edge. A pup was judged to possess a negative geotaxis capability if, when placed with its head downward on a grid tilted 45◦ to horizontal, it could rotate a full 180◦ and climb the grid within a maximum time of 30 s. If the pup could ﬂex its digits to grasp a paper clip used to stroke the forepaw, it was regarded as having achieved bar holding ability or a palmar grasp. A positive vibrissa placing response was recorded if the pup raised its head and extended its forelimbs to grasp the bench surface when lowered by the tail so that the vibrissae touched the bench. The visual placing test was positive if the pup attempted to grasp the bench surface when lowered by the tail to the bench top but without touching it. Age (days) of onset and completion of the reﬂex responses described above for each pup were recorded. The number of animals in each group displaying the positive reﬂex from onset to completion was also recorded daily. Detailed descriptions of these responses have been published elsewhere [14, 17–19, 21]. 2.6. Statistical Analysis. All data were analyzed using SPSS for windows (version 17.0). Body weight and the time spent standing supported and unsupported were subjected to repeated-measures ANOVA using a general linear model (GLM) considering age and treatment simultaneously. The mean time of onset and completion for acquisition of the activities was subject to a t-test for independent samples. The percentage of animals acquiring the physical, neuromotor, and reﬂex developmental parameters at various postnatal days were subject to a Chi-Square ANOVA using the Crosstab Procedure. The level of signiﬁcance was set at P ≤ 0.05. Relative EVA eﬀects (i.e., the percent diﬀerence between EVA and control groups) and gender eﬀects (i.e., the percent diﬀerence between male and female groups) were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). 3. Results 3.1. Growth and Physical Development. The diet supple- mented with 10% EVA was readily consumed by the adult rats. No obvious diﬀerences in the weight of food consumed by dams were detected between groups. Pups from EVA supplemented dams showed no apparent teratogenic eﬀects and no postnatal deaths occurred during the experimental period. No signiﬁcant diﬀerences between treatment groups 3 were observed with regard to litter size, litter weight, or individual birth weight. Rate of body weight gain monitored until postnatal day 21 was not diﬀerent between pups nursing mothers fed regular chow and EVA-supplemented chow (data not shown), and no gender diﬀerences were noted in the rate and pattern of body weight gain. To determine the possible eﬀects of maternal EVA sup- plementation on physical development, growth indices and achievement of physical development milestones such as pinna unfolding, eye opening, anogenital hair growth, and incisor eruption were assessed. Neither EVA supplementa- tion nor gender inﬂuenced the onset and completion of outer ear ﬂap unfolding (postnatal day 3 and 4, resp.), eye opening (postnatal day 13 and 15, resp.), and anogenital hair growth (postnatal day 14 and 18, resp.) (data not shown). However, the onset and completion of incisor eruption occurred earlier in pups nursing dams supplemented with EVA (postnatal day 9 and 11 versus postnatal day 10 and 12, resp.) (P < 0.05) with no diﬀerences observed between genders within the respective dietary groups. 3.2. Neuromotor and Reﬂexologic Development. The eﬀects of maternal dietary EVA supplementation on the postnatal day of onset and completion of group acquisition of neuromotor skill and neurological reﬂex are shown in Table 1. The average age of onset of the neuromotor skills for head-waving (2.0 days) and crawling (4.5 days) occurred at the same age for both groups and genders (data not shown). Pups nursing mothers supplemented with EVA demonstrated earlier onset and completion of several measures of reﬂex and neuromotor development. Although no statistically signiﬁcant diﬀerences were observed between the diet groups in either age of onset or completion of righting reﬂex, neg- ative geotaxis, cliﬀ avoidance behaviour, and acoustic startle response, pups from EVA-supplemented mothers tended to develop these activities sooner and more quickly than the control pups (Tables 1 and 2). The mean day of complete group acquisition for both supported and unsupported standing was earlier (P ≤ 0.05) in the EVA supplemented group. Few gender diﬀerences were noted except where the mean day of onset for unsupported standing in EVA males was earlier than that of the control group, but this diﬀerence was not seen with EVA females (Table 1). When acquisition of reﬂex and neuromotor skills was assessed on the basis of the average total percentage of pups acquiring the speciﬁc skill on a particular postnatal day of development (Table 2), a signiﬁcantly greater number of pups nursing EVA-supplemented dams showed earlier acquisition of the measured indices. Additionally, pups from EVA-supplemented dams demonstrated signiﬁcantly greater ability to stand supported or unsupported, measured by time spent in the activity, than pups from control diet dams (Table 3). However, no signiﬁcant diﬀerence between the genders within either group was noted. No significant differences between groups were observed in the amount of time spent in grooming during a six-minute observation period or in the onset and completion of bar hold- ing ability, vibrissa, and visual placing, and the proportion