Query: infant clitoris

title: Fetal phallic growth and penile standards for newborn male infants.
abstract: No appreciable difference in size of the fetal clitoris versus the fetal penis was noted until 14 weeks' gestation, which is after the period of masculine differentiation of the external genitals. However, significant differences in the rate of penile and clitoral growth were evident in second trimester fetuses. The majority of the prenatal growth of the penis occurs after 14 weeks gestation at an almost linear rate. The penile stretched length of the full term infant was 3.5 cm plus or minus 0.7 cm and the diameter was 1.1 cm plus or minus 0.2 cm.

title: Female genital cutting in the demographic and health surveys: a critical and comparative analysis
abstract: Female genital cutting (FGC) also known as female circumcision or female genital mutilation (FGM) is a common practice in many societies in the northern half of sub Saharan Africa as well as in Egypt and Yemen. Nearly universal in a few countries it is practiced by various groups in at least 25 African countries in Yemen and in immigrant populations in Europe and North America. The cutting varies from a symbolic nicking of the clitoris to excision of tissue and partial closure of the vaginal area (infibulation) The ritual aspects vary from the straightforward cutting of an infant in the household context to complex rituals involving the cutting of groups of adolescent girls held in seclusion for weeks or months. In a few societies the procedure is routinely carried out when a girl is a few weeks or a few months old (e.g. Eritrea Yemen) in most it occurs later in childhood or in adolescence. This comparative report summarizes data on FGC from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) implemented between 1989 and 2002. It is intended to make more accessible the basic information on the distribution and practice of FGC and to encourage country specific analysis of DHS data on FGC. The report describes the types of DHS data available on FGC outlines some overall patterns in the data identifies important changes over time and comments on the questionnaires used from 1989 to 2002. By the end of 2002 there were a total of 20 DHS surveys that included questions on the circumcision status of women. The surveys covered 15 countries in Africa plus Yemen. (excerpt)

title: A Collaborative Approach to Infant Research: Promoting Reproducibility, Best Practices, and Theory Building.
abstract: The ideal of scientific progress is that we accumulate measurements and integrate these into theory, but recent discussion of replicability issues has cast doubt on whether psychological research conforms to this model. Developmental research especially with infant participants also has discipline specific replicability challenges, including small samples and limited measurement methods. Inspired by collaborative replication efforts in cognitive and social psychology, we describe a proposal for assessing and promoting replicability in infancy research: large scale, multi laboratory replication efforts aiming for a more precise understanding of key developmental phenomena. The ManyBabies project, our instantiation of this proposal, will not only help us estimate how robust and replicable these phenomena are, but also gain new theoretical insights into how they vary across ages, linguistic communities, and measurement methods. This project has the potential for a variety of positive outcomes, including less biased estimates of theoretically important effects, estimates of variability that can be used for later study planning, and a series of best practices blueprints for future infancy research.

title: Mind Mindedness as a Multidimensional Construct: Appropriate and Nonattuned Mind Related Comments Independently Predict Infant Mother Attachment in a Socially Diverse Sample.
abstract: In a socially diverse sample of 206 infant mother pairs, we investigated predictors of infants' attachment security at 15 months, with a particular emphasis on mothers' tendency to comment appropriately or in a non attuned manner on their 8 month olds' internal states (so called mind mindedness) Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that higher scores for appropriate mind related comments and lower scores for non attuned mind related comments distinguished secure group mothers from their counterparts in the insecure avoidant, insecure resistant, and insecure disorganized groups. Higher scores for appropriate mind related comments and lower scores for non attuned mind related comments also independently predicted dichotomous organized/disorganized attachment. General maternal sensitivity predicted neither attachment security nor organization, although sensitivity was found to relate to dichotomous secure/insecure attachment specifically in the context of low socioeconomic status. The findings highlight how appropriate and non attuned mind related comments make independent contributions to attachment and suggest that mind mindedness is best characterized as a multidimensional construct.

title: Anogenital ratio: measure of fetal virilization in premature and full term newborn infants.
abstract: To provide normative data, we measured anogenital distances in 115 infants of 25 to 42 weeks gestational age and 10 pregnant women, including anus to fourchette (AF) anus to base of the clitoris (AC) and fourchette to base of the clitoris (FC) All infant measurements showed positive and significant correlations with body surface area, weight, length, and gestational age (P less than 0.001) However, the anogenital ratio (AF/AC) followed a normal distribution and did not correlate with any of the anthropometric variables or age. Mean SD) value in infants was 0.37 0.07, and in adults, 0.36 0.07. An anogenital ratio greater than 0.50 falls outside the 95% confidence limits, suggests labioscrotal fusion, and indicates a need for further evaluation. Because it is independent of body size and gestational age, the anogenital ratio should be useful in diagnosing androgen induced labioscrotal fusion in both premature and full term female infants.

title: Maternally administered interventions for preterm infants in the NICU: effects on maternal psychological distress and mother infant relationship.
abstract: Although studies have examined the effects of interventions focused on preterm infants, few studies have examined the effects on maternal distress (anxiety, depressive symptoms, post traumatic stress symptoms, parenting stress) or parenting. This study examined the effects of the auditory tactile visual vestibular (ATVV) intervention and kangaroo care (KC) on maternal distress and the mother infant relationship compared to an attention control group. 240 mothers from four hospitals were randomly assigned to the three groups. Maternal characteristics in the three groups were similar: 64.1% of ATVV mothers, 64.2% of KC mothers, and 76.5% of control mothers were African American; maternal age averaged 26.3 years for ATVV mothers, 28.1 for KC mothers, and 26.6 for control mothers; and years of education averaged 13.6 for ATVV and KC mothers, and 13.1 for control mothers. Mothers only differed on parity: 68.4% of ATVV and 54.7% of KC mothers were first time mothers as compared to 43.6% of control mothers. Their infants had a similar mean gestational ages (27.0 weeks for ATVV, 27.2 for KC, and 27.4 for control) and mean birthweights (993 g for ATVV, 1022 for KC, and 1023 for control) Mothers completed questionnaires during hospitalization, and at 2, 6 and 12 months corrected age on demographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, state anxiety, post traumatic stress symptoms, parenting stress, worry about child health, and child vulnerability (only at 12 months) At 2 and 6 months, 45 min videotapes of mother infant interactions were made, and the HOME Inventory was scored. Behaviors coded from the videotapes and a HOME subscale were combined into five interactive dimensions: maternal positive involvement and developmental stimulation and child social behaviors, developmental maturity, and irritability. Intervention effects were examined using general linear mixed models controlling for parity and recruitment site. The groups did not differ on any maternal distress variable. Kangaroo care mothers showed a more rapid decline in worry than the other mothers. The only interactive dimensions that differed between the groups were child social behaviors and developmental maturity, which were both higher for kangaroo care infants. Change over time in several individual infant behaviors was affected by the interventions. When mothers reported on the interventions they performed, regardless of group assignment, massage (any form including ATVV) was associated with a more rapid decline in depressive symptoms and higher HOME scores. Performing either intervention was associated with lower parenting stress. These findings suggest that as short term interventions, KC and ATVV have important effects on mothers and their preterm infants, especially in the first half of the first year.

title: Sample size, statistical power, and false conclusions in infant looking time research.
abstract: Infant research is hard. It is difficult, expensive, and time consuming to identify, recruit and test infants. As a result, ours is a field of small sample sizes. Many studies using infant looking time as a measure have samples of 8 to 12 infants per cell, and studies with more than 24 infants per cell are uncommon. This paper examines the effect of such sample sizes on statistical power and the conclusions drawn from infant looking time research. An examination of the state of the current literature suggests that most published looking time studies have low power, which leads in the long run to an increase in both false positive and false negative results. Three data sets with large samples >30 infants) were used to simulate experiments with smaller sample sizes; 1000 random subsamples of 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 infants from the overall samples were selected, making it possible to examine the systematic effect of sample size on the results. This approach revealed that despite clear results with the original large samples, the results with smaller subsamples were highly variable, yielding both false positive and false negative outcomes. Finally, a number of emerging possible solutions are discussed.

title: Imbalances in the knowledge about infant mental health in rich and poor countries: too little progress in bridging the gap.
abstract: The vast majority of infants are born in poor countries, but most of our knowledge about infants and children has emerged from high income countries. In 2003, M. Tomlinson and L. Swartz conducted a survey of articles on infancy between 1996 and 2001 from major international journals, reporting that a meager 5% of articles emanated from parts of the world other than North America, Europe, or Australasia. In this article, we conducted a similar review of articles on infancy published between 2002 and 2012 to assess whether the status of cross national research has changed in the subsequent decade. Results indicate that despite slight improvements in research output from the rest of world, only 2.3% of articles published in 11 years included data from low and middle income countries where 90% of the world's infants live. These discrepancies are indicative of the progress still needed to bridge the so called 10/90 gap (S. Saxena, G. Paraje, P. Sharan, G. Karam, R. Sadana, in infant mental health research. Cross national collaboration is urgently required to ensure expansion of research production in low resource settings.

title: RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL OF PARENT INFANT PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR PARENTS WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AND YOUNG INFANTS.
abstract: There is a dearth of good quality research investigating the outcomes of psychoanalytic parent infant psychotherapy (PIP) This randomized controlled trial investigated the outcomes of PIP for parents with mental health problems who also were experiencing high levels of social adversity and their young infants <12 months) Dyads were clinically referred and randomly allocated to PIP or a control condition of standard secondary and specialist primary care treatment (n 38 in each group) Outcomes were assessed at baseline and at 6 month and 12 month follow ups. The primary outcome was infant development. Secondary outcomes included parent infant interaction, maternal psychopathology, maternal representations, maternal reflective functioning, and infant attachment. There were no differential effects over time between the groups on measures of infant development, parent infant interaction, or maternal reflective functioning. Infant attachment classifications, measured only at the 12 month follow up, did not differ between the groups. There were favorable outcomes over time for the PIP treated dyads relative to the control group on several measures of maternal mental health, parenting stress, and parental representations of the baby and their relationship. The findings indicate potential benefits of parent infant psychotherapy for improving mothers' psychological well being and their representations of their baby and the parent infant relationship.

title: The Effect of Provera on the Fetus
abstract: 239 women received medroxyprogesterone during their pregnancies; they received no other hormone therapy. Of the 203 who went to term 172 were treated prior to the 12th week; the latter are discussed. Average daily dose varied from 5 50 mg or more orally with or without injectable supplements. Sex distribution of infants was 92 male to 82 female there were 2 sets of twins 1 stillborn and 1 newborn with congenital heart disease. The authors report a case of transient masculization of a female infant born with an enlarged clitoris which persisted until age 6 months. Masculization of the female fetus may occur if the fetus is subjected to some source of androgen prior to the 12th week of gestation after which the female generative tract is well differentiated and not likely to be affected. Other studies have reported up to 18% masculization using exogenous hormones with abnormalities as extreme as labial fusion and cloacal formation necessitating surgical correction.