Relationships among dietary intake, dietary patterns, dietary quality and nutrient adequacy and substance use in Latina mother/daughter dyads

This study examined the relationships among dietary intake, substance use, socioeconomic and acculturation-related factors among Latinas in Miami-Dade County. Substance abuse is rising among Latinas. A fuller understanding of this problem is needed given the rise of the Hispanic population and the role of women in Latin society. A better understanding between substance use and dietary intake can guide nutrition interventions to reduce negative substance-related health consequences. A purposeful sample of 320 Latina mother/daughter dyads were recruited and interviewed face-to-face as part of the Latino Women's Study. Dietary intake was collected via a 24-hour recall and examined by (1) nutrient intake, (2) dietary patterns using cluster analysis, (3) quality of diet using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and (4) the Dietary Reference Intakes to determine nutrient adequacy. Substance use was measured with the Drug Use Frequency and the Healthy and Daily Living Form. Acculturation was measured with the Cultural Identity Scale. Three dietary patterns emerged based on the number of servings from the food groups established in MyPyramid. None were associated with substance use. Latinas who reported using cannabis, cocaine, sedatives without prescription and/or more than five alcoholic drinks on an occasion at least once a month during the previous twelve months had significantly lower HEI scores (64 vs. 60; F = 7.8, p = .005) and consumed fewer fruits (F = 16, p < .001) than non-users. Latinas classified as mothers whom reported consuming cannabis at least 1-7 times a week had significantly lower HEI scores (F = 4.23, p = .015, η2 = .027) than daughters with the same frequency of substance use. One dimension of acculturation, greater familiarity with Latin culture, was associated with good dietary quality (β = .142, p = .012) regardless of any type of substance used or income level. There was a high prevalence of inadequacy of folic acid intake (50-75%) regardless of substance use. Substance users consumed significantly more energy (1,798 vs. 1,615; p = .027) than non-users. Although effect sizes were small, associations between dietary intake and substance use among Latinas deserve further exploration while acknowledging the combined association with acculturation. ^

A generational analysis of survival strategies of Southern rural Black women

This study examines cross-generational survival strategies, among Southern Rural Black women. Through their oral histories, the currents that run through the lives of five women will be examined from a Black female's perspective. While the experiences are richly different across four generations, these women have provided for their families despite the triple discrimination of being female, poor, and Black. Three important survival resources are identified: kin, education, and religion. The mothering role emerged as a master status with special emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship. ^

The representation of motherhood in contemporary Catalan fiction

This dissertation analyzes four twenty-first-century Catalan novels which present the complex positions occupied by mothers in the last seven decades. Its conceptual framework posits motherhood as both a changing social construction and a political institution in a constant state of flux. In Inma Monsó´s Todo un carácter (2001), Eva Piquer´s Una victoria diferente (2002), Carme Riera´s La mitad del alma (2004), and Najat El Hachmi´s El último patriarca (2008) motherhood is explored as a metaphorical act, a gender-constructing experience, as well as the locus of expression with regard to gender and power relations. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–1975), the majority of women were excluded from public spaces, and forced to stay home to care for their husbands and children. Furthermore, the state criminalized abortion, made contraception and divorce illegal, and promoted an ideal of femininity based on silence, sacrifice, and self-denial. The political changes of the late 1970s allowed women greater personal autonomy, and many women writers began to challenge stereotypical views of women’s social roles. Yet in the 70s and 80s, the narratives of Esther Tusquets, Ana María Moix, and Montserrat Roig represent the mother as a repressive figure whom the daughter must reject in order to liberate herself and regain her voice. It is not until the 90s when the novelists Mercedes Abad, Maruja Torres, Carme Riera, Imma Monsó, Eva Piquer, and María Barbal rehumanize the mother figure, recovering their matrilineal heritage. However, far from suggesting a unified trend in representations of motherhood in Catalan fiction, the diverse points of view of the novels under discussion here reveal that differences in attitudes among women authors about mother-daughter conflict are far from resolved. The theoretical background for this dissertation draws mainly on the work of Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, and Julia Kristeva. It includes psychoanalytic studies as well as sociologically based essays by Anna López Puig, Amparo Acereda, Jacqueline Cruz, Barbara Zecchi, Ángeles de la Concha, and Raquel Osborne, among others.

The Road from Emmaus

THE ROAD FROM EMMAUS is a collection of 20 personal and lyric essays that explores the narrator’s role as mother and daughter through a close look at significant life events, including her parents’ divorce, a high-risk pregnancy, the death of her father, talking to her daughter for the first time about sex, and accompanying her daughter to the DMV for a learner’s permit. Through examining familial roles and relationships, the narrator’s longing for home emerges as a unifying theme. The essays in THE ROAD FROM EMMAUS vary in style and tone, from light and funny to serious and probing. The collection is divided into five sections, each highlighting a different aspect of the narrator’s life as she evolves from a child, to a young adult, a mother, and a daughter who must help take care of her aging parents.

The effects of peer teaching of infant massage on general elf-efficacy and mother infant attachment among mothers in a residential rehabilitation facility for drug addiction and substance abuse

Approximately 200 million people, 5% aged 15-64 worldwide are illicit drug or substance abusers (World Drug Report, 2006). Between 2002 and 2005, an average of 8.2% of 12 year olds and older in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale metropolitan areas used illicit drugs (SAMHSA, 2007). Eight percent of pregnant women, aged 15 to 25, were more likely to have used illicit drugs during pregnancy than pregnant women aged 26 to 44. Alcohol use was 9.8% and cigarette use was 18% for pregnant women aged 15 to 44 (SAMHSA, 2005). Approximately a quarter of annual birth defects are attributed to the exposure of drugs or substance abuse in utero (General Accounting Office, 1991). Physical, psychological and emotional challenges may be present for the illicit drug/substance abuse (ID/SA) mother and infant placing them at a disadvantage early in their relationship (Shonkoff & Marshall, 1990). Mothers with low self efficacy have insecurely attached infants (Donovan, Leavitt, & Walsh, 1987). As the ID/SA mother struggles with wanting to be a good parent, education is needed to help her care for her infant. In this experimental study residential rehabilitating ID/SA mothers peer taught infant massage. Massage builds bonding/attachment between mother and infant (Reese & Storm, 2008) and peer teaching is effective because participants have faced similar challenges and speak the same language (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson 2001). Quantitative data were collected using the General Self-Efficacy and Maternal Attachment Inventory-Revised Scale before and after the 4-week intervention program. A reported result of this study was that empowering ID/SA mothers increased their self-efficacy, which in turn allowed the mothers to tackle challenges encountered and created feelings of being a fit mother to their infants. This research contributes to the existing database promoting evidence-based practice in drug rehabilitation centers. Healthcare personnel, such as nurse educators and maternal-child health practitioners, can develop programs in drug rehabilitation centers that cultivate an environment where the ID/SA rehabilitating mothers can peer teach each other, while creating a support system. Using infant massage as a therapeutic tool can develop a healthy infant and nurture a more positive relationship between mother and infant.

The Effects of Peer Teaching of Infant Massage on General Self-Efficacy and Mother Infant Attachment Among Mothers in a Residential Rehabilitation Facility for Drug Addiction and Substance Abuse

Approximately 200 million people, 5% aged 15-64 worldwide are illicit drug or substance abusers (World Drug Report, 2006). Between 2002 and 2005, an average of 8.2% of 12 year olds and older in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale metropolitan areas used illicit drugs (SAMHSA, 2007). Eight percent of pregnant women, aged 15 to 25, were more likely to have used illicit drugs during pregnancy than pregnant women aged 26 to 44. Alcohol use was 9.8% and cigarette use was 18% for pregnant women aged 15 to 44 (SAMHSA, 2005). Approximately a quarter of annual birth defects are attributed to the exposure of drugs or substance abuse in utero (General Accounting Office, 1991). Physical, psychological and emotional challenges may be present for the illicit drug/substance abuse (ID/SA) mother and infant placing them at a disadvantage early in their relationship (Shonkoff & Marshall, 1990). Mothers with low self efficacy have insecurely attached infants (Donovan, Leavitt, & Walsh, 1987). As the ID/SA mother struggles with wanting to be a good parent, education is needed to help her care for her infant. In this experimental study residential rehabilitating ID/SA mothers peer taught infant massage. Massage builds bonding/attachment between mother and infant (Reese & Storm, 2008) and peer teaching is effective because participants have faced similar challenges and speak the same language (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson 2001). Quantitative data were collected using the General Self-Efficacy and Maternal Attachment Inventory-Revised Scale before and after the 4-week intervention program. A reported result of this study was that empowering ID/SA mothers increased their self-efficacy, which in turn allowed the mothers to tackle challenges encountered and created feelings of being a fit mother to their infants. This research contributes to the existing database promoting evidence-based practice in drug rehabilitation centers. Healthcare personnel, such as nurse educators and maternal-child health practitioners, can develop programs in drug rehabilitation centers that cultivate an environment where the ID/SA rehabilitating mothers can peer teach each other, while creating a support system. Using infant massage as a therapeutic tool can develop a healthy infant and nurture a more positive relationship between mother and infant.

Out of View: Stories

OUT OF VIEW is a collection of stories set in the American Southwest about people coping with loss—the death of parents, children, ideals, innocence. The characters in this collection reap or resist lessons of life as they struggle to find their place in the world. In “First Rain,” 15-year-old Tessie struggles with the loss of her father and the demands of her mother as she navigates the rocky terrain of adolescence. In “Monsters,” middle-aged Maury has to choose between a new relationship and protecting the well-being of his 4-year-old ‘daughter.’ The stories are influenced by the Western realism of Maile Meloy and the playful plotting of Ron Carlson. These stories are inspired both by the Sonoran Desert—expansive, sun-soaked, unrepentant—and by the people who live, love, and lose in the interstices between Manifest Destiny and the Reconquista.

South Road

SOUTH ROAD, a novel told in third-person limited, follows Adrienne Harris as she navigates the trials of her coming-of-age summer and then must deal with the aftermath. 1997: seventeen-year-old Adrienne Harris wants nothing more than to flee her eccentric grandmother’s rule and leave Harbor Point and never look back. When she meets her new neighbors, Adrienne knows her life will never be the same. Adrienne quickly falls in love with the charismatic Quinn Merritt. They decide to keep their relationship a secret since both families disapprove. This secret starts a chain reaction that seemingly leads to the suicide of the troubled and poetic Lucas Merritt. The summer culminates with Adrienne running away, pregnant and heartbroken. 2011: thirty-one-year-old Adrienne is an out of work line cook and single mother. The story opens as Adrienne reluctantly returns home to Harbor Point to care for her ailing grandmother. Once home, Adrienne has to confront the things that haunt her—the summer she met and lost both Merritt brothers, and also her dysfunctional relationship with her grandmother—in order to heal and repair her own life and her relationship with her daughter. In the end, Adrienne discovers many truths that alter her perception of her past in Harbor Point. Adrienne is finally able to move forward and start to build a life for her and her daughter. Harbor Point, the last place in the world Adrienne Harris wanted to be, turns out to be the only place she wants to call home.