Background: 'Sitting month' is the Chinese tradition for postpartum customs. Available studies indicate that some of the traditional postpartum practices are potentially harmful for women's health. However, no intervention study aiming at postpartum practices has been performed. In this paper we evaluated the effect of a health and nutrition education intervention, which focused on improving postpartum dietary quality and optimal health behaviors. Methods: The study design was a randomized controlled trial conducted in both urban and rural area of Hubei between August 2003 and June 2004. A total of 302 women who attended the antenatal clinic during the third trimester with an uncomplicated pregnancy were recruited. Women randomized to the education intervention group in both urban and rural area received two two-hour prenatal education sessions and four postpartum counseling visits. Control group women received usual health care during pregnancy and postpartum period. Women were followed up until 42 days postpartum. Outcome measures were nutrition and health knowledge, dietary behavior, health behavior and health problems during the postpartum period. Results: Women in the intervention groups exhibited significantly greater improvement in overall dietary behaviors such as consumption of fruits, vegetables, soybean and soybean products as well as nutrition and health knowledge than those in the control groups. Significantly more women in the intervention groups give up the traditional behavior taboos. The incidence of constipation, leg cramp or joint pain and prolonged lochia rubra was significantly lower in the intervention groups as compared with the control groups. Conclusion: The study shows that health and nutrition education intervention enable the women take away some of the unhealthy traditional postpartum practices and decrease the prevalence of postpartum health problems. The intervention has potential for adaptation and development to large-scale implementation. Trial registration number: klACTRN12607000549426

Background: 'Sitting month' is a Chinese tradition for women's postpartum custom. The present study aims to explore the postpartum dietary and health practices of puerperal women and identify their influential factors in three selected regions of Hubei, China. Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted in the selected urban, suburban and rural areas in the province of Hubei from 1 March to 30 May 2003. A total of 2100 women who had given birth to full-term singleton infants in the past two years were selected as the participants. Data regarding postpartum practices and potentially related factors were collected through questionnaire by trained investigators. Results: During the puerperium, 18% of the participants never ate vegetables, 78.8% never ate fruit and 75.7% never drank milk. Behaviour taboos such as no bathing, no hair washing or teeth brushing were still popular among the participants. About half of the women didn't get out of the bed two days after giving birth. The average time they stayed in bed during this period was 18.0 h. One third of them didn't have any outdoor activities in that time periods. The educational background of both women and their spouses, location of their residence, family income, postnatal visit, nutrition and health care educational courses were found to be the influencing factors of women's postpartum practices. Conclusion: Traditional postpartum dietary and health behaviours were still popular among women in Hubei. Identifying the factors associated with traditional postpartum practices is critical to develop better targeting health education programs. Updated Information regarding postpartum dietary and health practices should be disseminated to women.

Chickenpox is a common contagious disease that remains an important public health issue worldwide. Over 90% of unvaccinated individuals become infected, but infection occurs at different ages in different parts of the world. Many people have been infected by 20 to 30 years of age in China, and adults and pregnant women who become infected often develop severe infection. Furthermore, a mortality rate of 2–3 per 100,000 infected persons has been reported. In this study, we explore the temperature-dependent transition of patterns of reported chickenpox cases in two large subtropical climate cities, Wuhan and Hong Kong, China, to aid in the prediction of epidemics and preparation for the effects of climatic changes on epidemiology of chickenpox in China. We used a time series analysis comprising a spectral analysis based on the maximum entropy method in the frequency domain and the nonlinear least squares method in the time domain. Specifically, the following time series data were analyzed: data of reported chickenpox cases and meteorological data, including the mean temperature, relative humidity and total rainfall in Wuhan and Hong Kong from January 2008 to June 2015. The time series data of chickenpox for both Wuhan and Hong Kong have two peaks per year, one in winter and another in spring, indicating a bimodal cycle. To investigate the source of the bimodal cycle of the chickenpox data, we defined the contribution ratio of the 1-year cycle, Q 1, and the 6-month cycle, Q 2, as the contribution of the amplitude of a 1-year cycle and a 6-month cycle, respectively, to the entire amplitude of the time-series data. The Q 1 values of Wuhan and Hong Kong were positively correlated with the annual mean temperature and rainfall of each city. Conversely, the Q 2 values of Wuhan and Hong Kong were negatively correlated with the annual mean temperature and rainfall of Wuhan and Hong Kong. Our results showed that the mean temperature and rainfall have a significant influence on the incidence of chickenpox, and might be important predictors of chickenpox incidence in Wuhan and Hong Kong.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is an infectious disease caused by a group of enteroviruses, including Coxsackievirus A16 (CVA16) and Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71). In recent decades, Asian countries have experienced frequent and widespread HFMD outbreaks, with deaths predominantly among children. In several Asian countries, epidemics usually peak in the late spring/early summer, with a second small peak in late autumn/early winter. We investigated the possible underlying association between the seasonality of HFMD epidemics and meteorological variables, which could improve our ability to predict HFMD epidemics. We used a time series analysis composed of a spectral analysis based on the maximum entropy method (MEM) in the frequency domain and the nonlinear least squares method in the time domain. The time series analysis was applied to three kinds of monthly time series data collected in Wuhan, China, where high-quality surveillance data for HFMD have been collected: (i) reported cases of HFMD, (ii) reported cases of EV-A71 and CVA16 detected in HFMD patients, and (iii) meteorological variables. In the power spectral densities for HFMD and EV-A71, the dominant spectral lines were observed at frequency positions corresponding to 1-year and 6-month cycles. The optimum least squares fitting (LSF) curves calculated for the 1-year and 6-month cycles reproduced the bimodal cycles that were clearly observed in the HFMD and EV-A71 data. The peak months on the LSF curves for the HFMD data were consistent with those for the EV-A71 data. The risk of infection was relatively high at 10 °C ≤ t < 15 °C (t, temperature [°C]) and 15 °C ≤ t < 20 °C, and peaked at 20 °C ≤ t < 25 °C. In this study, the HFMD infections occurring in Wuhan showed two seasonal peaks, in summer (June) and winter (November or December). The results obtained with a time series analysis suggest that the bimodal seasonal peaks in HFMD epidemics are attributable to EV-A71 epidemics. Our results suggest that controlling the spread of EV-A71 infections when the temperature is approximately 20–25 °C should be considered to prevent HFMD infections in Wuhan, China.

The resurgence and outbreaks of mumps occur frequently in many countries worldwide in recent years, even in countries with high vaccination coverage. In this study, a descriptive and spatiotemporal clustering analysis at the township level was conducted to explore the dynamic spatiotemporal aggregation and epidemiological characteristics of mumps in Wuhan. During 2005 and 2019, there were 40 685 cases reported in Wuhan, with an average annual morbidity of 28.11 per 100 000 populations. The morbidity showed a fluctuating tendency, and peaked in 2010 and 2018. Bimodal seasonality was found, with a large peak between May and July, and a mild peak from November to January in the following year. Male students aged 5-9-year-old were the main risk group of mumps infection. Significant global spatial auto-correlation was detected except in 2007, 2009 and 2015. The spatial and temporal scan statistics indicated that the hot-spots mainly located at the western and southern areas of Wuhan with variations almost every year. Our findings could assist the public health authorities to develop and improve targeted health strategies, and allocate health resources rationally.