SpotlightDarryl Holman awarded NIH Grant
In populations that approximate conditions of natural fertility, the period of lactational infecundability is one of the most important and the most variable components of birth intervals. A debate has emerged in the last decade over the mechanism by which breastfeeding suppresses hypothalamic activity and, in turn, fecundity. For the project, Professor Holman will develop and evaluate two classes of biodemographic tools for investigating the mechanisms of lactational amenorrhea-- new endocrine tools for assessing metabolic load for large population-based field projects, and two new statistical models of lactational amenorrhea. These tools will be applied to three existing longitudinal data sets in order to evaluate their potential for a more targeted study. |
