What influences the timing of the introduction of solid food to infants?

The aim of the present study was to assess the factors which may influence the timing of the introduction of solid food to infants. The design was a prospective cohort study by interview and postal questionnaire. Primiparous women (n 541) aged between 16 and 40 years were approached in the Forth Park Maternity Hospital, Fife, Scotland. Of these, 526 women agreed to participate and seventy-eight were used as subjects in the pilot study. At 12 weeks we interviewed 338 women of the study sample. The postal questionnaire was returned by 286 of 448 volunteers. At 12 weeks 133 of 338 mothers said that they had introduced solids. Those that said that they had introduced solids early (<12 weeks) were compared with those who had introduced solids late (>12 weeks) by bivariate and multiple regression analysis. Psychosocial factors influencing the decision were measured with the main outcome measure being the time of introduction of solid food. The early introduction of solids was found to be associated with: the opinions of the infant's maternal grandmother; living in a deprived area; personal disagreement with the advice to wait until the baby was 4 months; lack of encouragement from friends to wait until the baby was 4 months; being in receipt of free samples of manufactured food. Answers to open-ended questions indicated that the early introduction appeared to be influenced by the mothers’ perceptions of the baby's needs. Some of the factors influencing a woman's decision to introduce solids are amenable to change, and these could be targeted in educational interventions.

It's not interaction, it's make believe.

A principal, but largely unexplored, use of our cognition when using interacting technology involves pretending. To pretend is to believe that which is not the case, for example, when we use the desktop on our personal computer we are pretending, that is, we are pretending that the screen is a desktop upon which windows reside. But, of course, the screen really isn't a desktop. Similarly when we engage in scenario- or persona-based design we are pretending about the settings, narrative, contexts and agents involved. Although there are exceptions, the overwhelming majority of the contents of these different kinds of stories are not the case. We also often pretend when we engage in the evaluation of these technologies (e.g. in the Wizard of Oz technique we "ignore the man behind the curtain"). We are pretending when we ascribe human-like qualities to digital technology. In each we temporarily believe something to be the case which is not. If we add the experience of tele- and social-presence to this, and the diverse experiences which can arise from using digital technology which too are predicted on pretending, then we are prompted to propose that human computer interaction and cognitive ergonomics are largely built on pretending and make believe. If this premise is accepted (and if not, please pretend for a moment), there are a number of interesting consequences.