description): The long-term goals of the research are to determine the potential relationships between the acute cardiovascular response to feeding in infants and: 1) feeding efficiency and weight gain, 2) pathology in infants, and 3) subsequent cardiovascular reactivity and risk for cardiovascular disease. Working hypotheses are that infants with unusually small responses to feeding will not process nutrients efficiently and will gain weight more slowly and, infants with unusually large blood pressure increases during feeding will have heightened cardiovascular reactivity to environmental challenges throughout life and, therefore, will be at increased risk for the development of hypertension. The research plan is to carefully examine four factors that are likely to influence the magnitude of these responses: pacifier sucking experience immediately before feeding, qualities of the nutrient ingested, volume and rate of nutrient intake, and postnatal age of the infant.
| Myers, Michael M; Shair, Harry N; Cohen, Morris (2005) Blood pressure responses to feeding in infancy: spin-offs of serendipity. Dev Psychobiol 47:268-77 |
| Cohen, M; Brown, D R; Myers, M M (2001) Cardiovascular responses to pacifier experience and feeding in newborn infants. Dev Psychobiol 39:34-9 |
