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Objective: To explore the effectiveness of a nurse‐led mobile health (mHealth) intervention to prevent excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) in overweight and obese women. Methods: A randomized controlled trial with an experimental study design. Ninety‐two pregnant women with body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m2 at less than 17 weeks gestation were recruited from two prenatal clinics in northern Taiwan from January to June 2020. The experimental group used the MyHealthyWeight (MHW) app and a wearable activity tracker (WAT), and the controls received standard antenatal treatments with no mHealth‐based elements. Two hospital follow‐up visits were scheduled at 24–26 weeks in the second trimester and 34–36 weeks in the third trimester. A generalized estimating equation (GEE) was used to examine the trajectories and the effectiveness of mHealth on GWG. Results: No difference in GWG was found between the intervention and control groups at baseline (p > 0.05). The GWG trajectory in the entire cohort of women with obesity exhibited a quadratic pattern (ß = 1.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.27–2.32), and intervention participants' weekly GWG was gained significantly lower than their controls in the second trimester (p < 0.05). Throughout the pregnancy, the mHealth intervention group had a significantly lower proportion of individuals who exceeded their GWG in both total (21.6% vs. 32.6%) and weekly weight gain (first trimester = 58.7% vs. 65.2%; second trimester = 45% vs. 67.4%; third trimester = 48.6% vs. 55.1%). In particular, among obese women in the third trimester, those in the intervention group gained less gestational weight than their controls. The adjusted body weight difference was 5.44 kg (p = 0.023), signifying the total GWG difference (3.30 vs. 8.74 kg) between the means of the two groups. The GEE model indicated that obese women who were aged 35 years, had prepregnancy exercise habits, perceived self‐efficacy of diet, and more physical activity tended to have low GWG (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The nurse‐led mHealth‐based intervention shows promising results in significantly preventing excessive GWG among high‐BMI women. More effectiveness was found among the obese subgroup. Clinical relevance: The mHealth‐based intervention would be successfully implemented by nurses to help high‐BMI women maintain their optimal body weight and promote healthy behavioral changes, particularly in diet and physical activity during pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Childbirth may pose many challenges to the psychological well-being of marriage-based immigrant mothers in interracial marriages, who must negotiate bi-dimensional acculturation – adaptation to the host culture and maintenance of her own heritage culture. We examined the temporal relationships between bi-dimensional acculturation and depressive symptoms from pregnancy to 1 year postpartum among marriage-based immigrant mothers in Taiwan using the cross-lagged structural equation modeling. Methods: This study recruited 310 immigrant mothers, who were examined in the second and third trimesters, and again at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year postpartum from March 2013 to December 2015. Depressive symptoms and bi-dimensional acculturation were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and Bidimensional Acculturation Scale for Marriage-Based Immigrant Women, respectively. Results: The study found that adaptation to the host culture followed a downward linear trajectory, while maintenance of the mother's own heritage culture followed an upward linear trajectory from pregnancy to 1 year postpartum. All but one cross-lagged path between bi-dimensional acculturation and depressive symptoms was statistically insignificant, though almost all cross-sectional associations were significant. Adaptation to host culture was negatively associated with depressive symptoms at all time points. The association between maintenance of heritage culture and depressive symptoms reversed from positive to negative after 6 months postpartum. Conclusions: Adaptation to the host culture and maintenance of the mother's heritage culture differed in their associations with maternal depressive symptoms. Health professionals should assist immigrant mothers in adapting to the host culture while supporting their heritage culture in the childbearing period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since polysaccharides from many fungi have been shown to exhibit immunomodulating activity, the present study was aimed at isolating polysaccharides fromMonascus purpureusand examining their effects on human leukemic U937 cells with or without immunomodulating stimulation by blood mononuclear cells (MNCs). The 50–100 kDa polysaccharide fraction (MP3) obtained from ultrafiltration showed the highest antitumor activity by 42.2 ± 2.1% growth inhibition. This polysaccharide fraction was further resolved by anion exchanger resin into three peaks. Among them, the second peak (MP3B) exerted the most potent inhibitory action, and even at 1 µg/mL, it was able to activate MNCs to produce a conditioned medium that inhibited the growth of U937 by 73.43 ± 1.4%. In contrast, when U937 cells were directly cultured in the presence of MP3B, the cell growth was not retarded even at the concentrations of MP3B as high as 100 µg/mL. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]