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The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that children be breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months of age. This recommendation may prove challenging for women with spinal cord injury (SCI) who face unique challenges and barriers to breastfeeding due to the impact of SCI on mobility and physiology. Tailored provision of care from health care professionals (HCPs) is important in helping women navigate these potential barriers. Yet, HCPs often lack the confidence and SCI-specific knowledge to meet the needs of mothers with SCI. An international panel of clinicians, researchers, consultants, and women with lived experience was formed to create an accessible resource that can address this gap. A comprehensive survey on breastfeeding complications, challenges, resources, and quality of life of mothers with SCI was conducted, along with an environmental scan to evaluate existing postpartum guidelines and assess their relevance and usability as recommendations for breastfeeding after SCI. Building on this work, this article provides evidence-based recommendations for HCPs, including but not limited to general practitioners, obstetricians, pediatricians, physiatrists, lactation consultants, nurses, midwives, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists who work with prospective and current mothers with SCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that infants be breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months of age. However, there are few resources available on the effects a spinal cord injury (SCI) can have for breastfeeding mothers. It is difficult to find information to address the unique challenges women with SCI experience when planning or trying to breastfeed. Our international team, including women with SCI, health care providers, and SCI researchers, aims to address the information gap through the creation of this consumer guide. The purpose of this consumer guide is to share the most common issues women with SCI experience during breastfeeding and provide information, practical suggestions, recommendations, and key resources in lay language. General information about breastfeeding is available on the internet, in books, or from friends and health care providers. We do not intend to repeat nor replace general breastfeeding information or medical advice. Breastfeeding for mothers with SCI is complex and requires a team of health care providers with complementary expertise. Such a team may include family physician, obstetrician, physiatrist, neurologist, occupational and physical therapist, lactation consultant, midwife, and psychologist. We hope this consumer guide can serve as a quick reference guide for mothers with SCI planning of trying to breastfeed. This guide will also be helpful to health care providers as an educational tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In North America, there are currently no clearly defined standards of care for women with spinal cord injury (SCI) during the perinatal periods of preconception, pregnancy, labour/delivery, and postpartum. Women with SCI and their partners say resources specific to their needs are hard to find. Little evidence-informed research exists to guide clinicians in the care of women with SCI during pregnancy. Objectives: To further explore these gaps in knowledge and practices for perinatal care for women with SCI, a 1-day workshop was held in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), Canada in November 2013. Methods: Twerty-nine attendees included women with SCI, SCI-community service providers, researchers, and health care providers from maternal/fetal medicine, rehabilitation, anesthesiology, and psychiatry. A pre-meeting online survey of stakeholders elucidated 3 themes: lack of knowledge for both consumers and care providers, gaps in access to services and information, and a need for collaboration throughout the perinatal journey. The workshop addressed issues of care providers' lack of knowledge of nonmedical issues during the perinatal period, physical and altitudinal barriers to access to care for women with SCI, and the need for better collaboration and communication between care providers, the latter potentially initiated by providing information to care providers through the women with SCI themselves. Results: Content experts attending the workshop collectively made recommendations for knowledge generation and research priorities, clinical application priorities, and the need for policy and guideline development in this field. Conclusion: Two information sources for women have since been developed and are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral therapies aimed at reducing excess body fat result in limited fat loss after dieting. To understand the causes for maintenance of adiposity, high-fat (HF) diet–induced obese (DIO) mice were switched to a low-fat chow diet, and the effects of chow on histological and molecular alterations of adipose tissue and metabolic parameters were examined. DIO mice reduced and stabilized their body weights after being switched to chow (HF-chow), but retained a greater amount of adiposity than chow-fed mice. Reduction in adipocyte volume, not number, caused a decrease in fat mass. HF-chow mice showed normalized circulating insulin and leptin levels, improved glucose tolerance, and reduced inflammatory status in white adipose tissue (WAT). Circulating leptin levels corrected for fat mass were lower in HF-chow mice. Leptin administration was used to test whether reduced leptin level of HF-chow mice inhibited further fat loss. Leptin treatment led to an additional reduction in adiposity. Finally, HF-HF mice had lower mRNA levels of β3 adrenergic receptor (β3-AR) in epididymal WAT (EWAT) compared to chow-fed mice, and diet change led to an increase in the WAT β3-AR mRNA levels that were similar to the levels of chow-fed mice, suggesting an elevation in sympathetic activation of WAT during diet switch relative to HF-HF mice leading to the reduced leptin level and proinflammatory cytokine content. In summary, HF-chow mice were resistant to further fat loss due to leptin insufficiency. Diet alteration from HF to low fat improved metabolic state of DIO mice, although their adiposity was defended at a higher level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habitat destruction has driven many once-contiguous animal populations into remnant patches of varying size and isolation. The underlying framework for the conservation of fragmented populations is founded on the principles of island biogeography, wherein the probability of species occurrence in habitat patches varies as a function of patch-size and isolation. Despite decades of research, the general importance of patch area and isolation as predictors of species occupancy in fragmented terrestrial systems remains unknown because of a lack of quantitative synthesis. Here. we compile occupancy data from 1,015 bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate population networks on 6 continents and show that patch area and isolation are surprisingly poor predictors of occupancy for most species. We examine factors such as improper scaling and biases in species representation as explanations and find that the type of land cover separating patches most strongly affects the sensitivity of species to patch area and isolation. Our results indicate that patch area and isolation are indeed important factors affecting the occupancy of many species, but properties of the intervening matrix should not be ignored. Improving matrix quality may lead to higher conservation returns than manipulating the size and configuration of remnant patches for many of the species that persist in the aftermath of habitat destruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The synthesis and biological testing of novel classes of potent melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH-R1) antagonists based on pyrazolopiperazinone and pyrrolopiperazinone scaffolds are described. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A direct correlation between hERG binding and QTc prolongation was established for a series of aminomethyl tetrahydronaphthalene ketopiperazine MCH-R1 antagonists. Compounds within this class with greater selectivity over hERG were developed. Compound 4h proved to have the best profile, with MCH-R1 K i =16nm and hERG IC50 =25μM. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]