Viewing Study NCT00342225



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Study NCT ID: NCT00342225
Status: COMPLETED
Last Update Posted: 2017-07-02
First Post: 2006-06-19

Brief Title: Mother-Child Relationships During Pregnancy Among Bofi Foragers
Sponsor: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development NICHD
Organization: National Institutes of Health Clinical Center CC

Study Overview

Official Title: Mother-Child Relationships During Pregnancy Among the Bofi Foragers in the Northern Congo
Status: COMPLETED
Status Verified Date: 2006-12-21
Last Known Status: None
Delayed Posting: No
If Stopped, Why?: Not Stopped
Has Expanded Access: False
If Expanded Access, NCT#: N/A
Has Expanded Access, NCT# Status: N/A
Acronym: None
Brief Summary: This study will examine changes in mother-child relationships when mothers are pregnant because this period may involve conflicts between mothers and children A widely held evolutionary theory postulates that because parents and offspring share only about 50 percent of their genes conflicts occur and would most likely occur at times when parental investment decreases Offspring benefit from obtaining maximal parental investment and may demand more investment than parents are willing to give at times perhaps because the parent would better benefit from directing their energy to other pursuits such as to other offspring or to work This study will explore the following

How pregnant mothers treat their children in terms of caregiving techniques
Whether mothers exhibit different caregiving patterns at different stages of pregnancy
Whether mother-child conflicts arise during pregnancy and if so when during pregnancy they are most likely to occur and
Whether offspring overtly resist changes in maternal behavior during pregnancy and if so what behaviors children use to resist these changes

All pregnant Bofi forager women living in settlements near the villages of Ngotto Poutem Bambondji and Grima in the Central African Republic who have one or more living offspring and have no serious health problems related to pregnancy may be eligible for this study Bofi foragers are among the few remaining hunters and gatherers and as such offer an opportunity to examine child developmental theories that have been well studied among industrialized Euro-American cultures but neglected cross-culturally Furthermore studies among contemporary hunter-gatherers provide insight into the evolutionary past of humans as humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for about 99 percent of prehistory

Participating pregnant Bofi forager women will be interviewed for demographic information family genealogy fertility history and parenting beliefs The women and their children will be observed for 4 hours on two different days as they carry out their normal daily activities Attention will be paid to the mothers investment in terms of direct care of the children including behaviors such as holding cleaning comforting grooming and feeding children
Detailed Description: This study seeks to examine parent-offspring reproductive conflicts between Bofi forager mothers and children in the Republic of Congo One of the most prominent theories in evolutionary studies of human behavior is Trivers 1974 parent-offspring conflict theory which predicts that offspring contrive to maximize investment from their parents whereas parents try to balance the interests of their offspring with the interests of their future reproduction Fouts 2002 and Fouts Hewlett Lambs 2001 research with the Bofi foragers indicated that weaning was not a time that elicited overt conflict between mothers and their offspring Instead transitions in investment appeared to have occurred prior to weaning perhaps when the mothers became pregnant

This study proposes to document mother-child interactions when forager mothers are at different stages of pregnancy through naturalistic observations of public behavior as well as measures including the approximate week of pregnancy maternal beliefs about child-care and demographic features of families The data will be analyzed statistically and used to evaluate Trivers parent-offspring theory as well as to evaluate the validity of claims by Western scholars about universal features of parent-child relationships The foragers provide an excellent opportunity to examine child developmental theories that have been well studied among industrialized Euro-American cultures but neglected cross-culturally Furthermore studies among contemporary hunter-gatherer groups such as the foragers in Congo provide insight into the evolutionary past of humans as humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for approximately 99 of prehistory and the few remaining groups are disappearing rapidly Phillipson 1993

Study Oversight

Has Oversight DMC: None
Is a FDA Regulated Drug?: None
Is a FDA Regulated Device?: None
Is an Unapproved Device?: None
Is a PPSD?: None
Is a US Export?: None
Is an FDA AA801 Violation?: None
Secondary IDs
Secondary ID Type Domain Link
03-CH-N073 None None None