Preventing intellectual and interactional sequelae of fetal malnutrition: a longitudinal, transactional, and synergistic approach to development.

This report presents continuing longitudinal data of a natural experiment in which fetally malnourished infants and their controls were randomly assigned to 2 environments differing in intellectually supportive characteristics. Whereas a previous report of these infants from 3 to 24 months of age provided evidence supporting the bidirectionality of effects of infant and environmental attributes, this study shows the continuation of the detrimental effects through 36 months of age on intellectual, behavioral, and social-interactional development in a nonsupportive caregiving environment, and the continued amelioration of those effects in a supportive caregiving environment. Further, analyses of maternal variables showed that the mothers of fetally malnourished infants may have had life histories of increased risk when compared to mothers of control infants. The results are discussed in terms of the convergence of dynamic intergenerational, prenatal, and postnatal influences on development.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes