• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.371-378
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• 2022

Objectives: No studies have examined the association between preterm birth rates and socioeconomic factors in Japan using nationwide statistical data. We analyzed the association between preterm birth rates and household occupation using Vital Statistics data. Methods: Aggregated Vital Statistics data from Japan from 2007 to 2019 were obtained from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. From the data, the number of births according to year, age group, gestational period, number of pregnancies, and household occupation were used in this study. Crude preterm birth rates and preterm birth rates adjusted by maternal age according to household occupation were calculated for each year. Poisson regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between household occupation and preterm births. Results: Unemployed households had the highest preterm birth rate, and households with an occupation classification of "full-time worker 2" (an employee at a large company, civil servant, or board member) had the lowest preterm birth rate throughout each period. Poisson regression analysis revealed that unemployed households were statistically significantly associated with a high preterm birth risk. In contrast, the preterm birth rate adjusted by maternal age remained stable throughout each period regardless of household occupation, and preterm birth rates were found not to have increased in recent years in Japan. Conclusions: Unemployed households had higher preterm birth rates than other household occupations. Further studies investigating the characteristics of unemployed households are needed to identify the reasons for this disparity.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.127-136
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• 1995

In this study, the nutritional composition of colostrum milk obtained from 22 mothers delivering perterm infants and 17 mothers delivering term infants was analyzed. The energy content of colostrum was yielded based on nitrogen, lactose, and lipid data. Preterm milk is more close the nutritional needs of the preterm infant than dose other breast milk. The results are as follows : 1) Protein concentration was significantly higher, but carbohydrate and lipid concentration were lower in preterm milk than fullterm milk. Energy content yielded from total nitrogen, lactose and lipid concentration was higher in the fullterm milk than preterm milk. 2) Calcium was higher in the preterm milk than fullterm colostrum. Phosphate was lower in fullterm milk than pretem milk. Calcium/Phosphate ratio were 2.61/1 in the preterm and 2.06/1 in the fullterm milk. Magnesium was higher in the preterm milk than fullterm milk. Zinc, Copper and Manganese concentrations were tended to lower in the preterm milk than fullterm milk.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.215-227
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• 1994

Changes in total lipid content, total cholesterol content and fatty acid composition of preterm milk were investigated during early lactation. Milk samples were collected from Korean mothers of 16 premature(34 to 36 weeks gestation age) infants on day 2 to 5(colostrum) and at 6 weeks(mature) postpartum. We estimated the lipid nutrition of preterm milk by comparing with the lipids of term milk. The total lipid content of preterm colostrum was significantly lower than the lipid content of preterm mature milk(p<0.001). Lipid content, determined gravimetrically in colostrum and matured milk, was 1.50g/이 and 3.2g/dl, respectively. Also the total cholesterol content(mg/dl) in preterm milk tends to increase from 14.16mg/dl to 15.20mg/dl, while the total cholesterol(mg/g lipid) concentration higher significantly in colostrum(12.36mg/g) than in mature(5.73mg/g)(p<0.001). The total unsaturated fatty acid contents in preterm milk were higher in colostrum than in mature milk and the total saturated fatty acids were higher in mature milk. The average DHA contents of colostrum and matured milk was 0.64%, 0.53% and the P/M/S ratio of preterm milk were 0.63 : 1.05 : 1.00, 0.47 : 0.79 : 1.00, respectively. Also, $\omega$6/$\omega$3 ratio of preterm milk were 2.35 in colostrum and 5.81 in mature. Therefore, colostrum in preterm milk contained higher amounts of $\omega$3 PUFA than mature milk. The levels of total lipid in preterm milk were higher than term milk. Also, preterm milk is richer in cholesterol, and long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid than term. It appears that the milk secreted by mothers who delivered prematurely differs from milk in several important respect. These components may serve as precursors for membrane, myelin development in the preterm infants. Therefore, it would be necessary to study further into the machanism of how the gestation age might affect to the lipid composition in human milk. These data may provide a basis for better construction of infant formaulas to provide more adequately for the lipid requirements of the Korean premature infant.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.826-836
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• 2022

Signal decomposition is a computational technique that dissects a signal into its constituent components, providing supplementary information. In this study, the capability of two common signal decomposition techniques, including wavelet-based and empirical mode decomposition, on preterm birth classification was investigated. Ten time-domain features were extracted from the constituent components of electrohysterogram (EHG) signals, including EHG subbands and EHG intrinsic mode functions, and employed for preterm birth classification. Preterm birth classification and anticipation are crucial tasks that can help reduce preterm birth complications. The computational results show that the preterm birth classification obtained using wavelet-based decomposition is superior. This, therefore, implies that EHG subbands decomposed through wavelet-based decomposition provide more applicable information for preterm birth classification. Furthermore, an accuracy of 0.9776 and a specificity of 0.9978, the best performance on preterm birth classification among state-of-the-art signal processing techniques, were obtained using the time-domain features of EHG subbands.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.713-721
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to compare the breast feeding practice rates and mothers' breast feeding empowerment in preterm (gestation age [GA]<34), late preterm ($34{\leq}$GA<37), early term infants ($37{\leq}$GA<39). We surveyed 33 preterm, 22 late preterm, and 30 early term infants at a 'Baby-Friendly Hospital' in D city. The data were collected from October 1st, 2008 to February 28th, 2010 through the medical records of the infants and their mothers. We also checked the mothers' breast feeding empowerment at discharge day. The rate of breast feeding in the late preterm and preterm infants was significantly lower than that of the early term infants. The score of mothers' breast feeding empowerment in the late preterm and preterm infants was also significantly lower than that of the early term infants. The breast feeding education program is required for the mothers who have preterm and late preterm infants considering the low rate of breast feeding.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.273-285
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• 2022

Objectives: This study compared the nutritional intakes of early and late preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and at home. The dietary problems and the need for community care services for premature infants were further investigated. Methods: This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study on 125 preterm infants and their parents (Early preterm n = 70, Late preterm n = 55). The data were collected by surveying the parents of preterm infants and from hospital medical records. Results: No significant differences were obtained between the early and late preterm infant groups when considering the proportion of feeding types in the NICU and at home. Early preterm infants were fed with a greater amount of additional calories at home and had more hours of tube feeding (P = 0.022). Most preterm infants had feeding problems. However, there was no significant difference between early and late preterm infants in the mental pain of parents, sleeping, feeding, and weaning problems at home. Many parents of preterm babies had no external support, and more than half the parents required community care to take care of their preterm babies. Conclusions: Regardless of the gestational age, most preterm infants have several problems with dietary intake. Our study indicates the need to establish community care services for preterm infants.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.219-228
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• 2023

Purpose: Preterm birth is increasing, and obstetric nurses should have the competency to provide timely care. Therefore, training is necessary in the maternal nursing practicum. This study aimed to investigate the effects of practice education using a preterm-labor assessment algorithm on preterm labor-related knowledge and clinical practice confidence in senior nursing students. Methods: A pre-post quasi-experimental design with three groups was used for 61 students. The preterm-labor assessment algorithm was modified into three modules from the preterm-labor assessment algorithm by March of Dimes. We evaluated preterm labor-related knowledge, clinical practice confidence, and educational satisfaction. Data were analyzed with the paired t-test and repeated-measures analysis of variance. Results: The practice education using a preterm-labor assessment algorithm significantly improved both preterm labor-related knowledge and clinical practice confidence (paired t=-7.17, p<.001; paired t=-5.51, p<.001, respectively). The effects of the practice education using a preterm-labor assessment algorithm on knowledge lasted until 8 weeks but decreased significantly at 11 and 13 weeks after the program, while the clinical practice confidence significantly decreased at 8 weeks post-program. Conclusion: The practice education using a preterm-labor assessment algorithm was effective in improving preterm labor-related knowledge and clinical practice confidence. The findings suggest that follow-up education should be conducted at 8 weeks, or as soon as possible thereafter, to maintain knowledge and clinical confidence, and the effects should be evaluated.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.109-116
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test effects of music therapy on stress due to preterm labor and uterine contraction in pregnant women with preterm labor. Methods: An experimental research design was used. Participants were 35 pregnant women with preterm labor who were between 20 to 37 weeks of pregnancy: control group (n=18) received only tocolytic drugs, while experimental group (n=17) received additional music therapy. In the experimental group, Traumerei was applied before Non-Stress Test (NST) from the second day to fifth day after admission as music therapy. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in stress due to preterm labor (z=-3.368, p<.001) between the two groups. Conclusion: The music therapy is an effective method for reducing the stress of pregnant women with preterm labor.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2015

In this paper, a novel method for the classification of term and preterm birth is proposed based on time-frequency analysis of electrohysterogram (EHG) using multivariate empirical mode decomposition (MEMD). EHG is a promising study for preterm birth prediction, because it is low-cost and accurate compared to other preterm birth prediction methods, such as tocodynamometry (TOCO). Previous studies on preterm birth prediction applied prefilterings based on Fourier analysis of an EHG, followed by feature extraction and classification, even though Fourier analysis is suboptimal to biomedical signals, such as EHG, because of its nonlinearity and nonstationarity. Therefore, the proposed method applies prefiltering based on MEMD instead of Fourier-based prefilters before extracting the sample entropy feature and classifying the term and preterm birth groups. For the evaluation, the Physionet term-preterm EHG database was used where the proposed method and Fourier prefiltering-based method were adopted for comparative study. The result showed that the area under curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was increased by 0.0351 when MEMD was used instead of the Fourier-based prefilter.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2008

In Korea, delivery of preterm has increased gradually, preterm delivery rate was 6.4% in 1995 and 9.8% in 2002. The purpose of this study is to provide guidelines for preventing preterm delivery in aspect of health factors and food habits. The health factors and dietary habits were compared between preterm delivery group and full-term delivery group on to recognize risk factor of delivering premature. The results obtained are summarized as follows. The full-term delivery group showed a high rate of professionals and the preterm delivery group showed a high rate of the service industry, showing differences in kinds of occupation(p<0.05). Heights were higher in full-term delivery group(p<0.05). Among the nutrition supplements, iron supplement consumption was the most, period of the intake of iron was significantly longer for the full-term delivery group than for the preterm delivery group(p<0.05). Also, prevalence of coffee was higher in preterm delivery group(p<0.001). The activity level was higher in full-term delivery group(p<0.005).