Amanda Veile

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Purdue University West Lafayette

Background: Changes in health care access and birthing practices may pose barriers to optimal breastfeeding in modernizing rural populations. Objectives: We evaluated temporal and maternal age-related trends in birth and breastfeeding in a modernizing Maya agriculturalist community. We tested 2 hypotheses: (1) home births would be associated wit...

The thymus plays an important role in the development of the immune system, yet little is known about the patterns and sources of variation in postnatal thymic development. The aim of this study is to contribute cross-cultural data on thymus size in infants from two South American native populations, the Tsimane of Bolivia and the Pumé of Venezuela...

This study examines infant feeding beliefs and practices in a rural Peruvian Quechua community. The aim was to assess which infant foods are considered culturally meaningful, and if concordance exists between beliefs and practices. Mothers were asked to free-list their child's "actual" first foods (n = 85), then to free-list "ideal" infant foods (n...

This chapter provides an introduction to the nutrition transition and its effects on diet, growth, and health of very rural Latin American indigenous infants and children. Case studies are drawn from fieldwork in communities of Tsimane forager-farmers in the Bolivian Amazon, Venezuelan Pumé hunter-gatherers, and Yucatec Maya subsistence farmers in...

Introduction: We compare demographic, socioeconomic, and anthropometric characteristics and blood pressure (BP), between rural and urban Peruvian indigenous women. These are preliminary results from a project on urbanization, migration, and health. Methods: Data were collected cross-sectionally (2019) and compared between a rural (n = 92) and an...

The author list and contributions statement for ‘Repercussions of patrilocal residence on mothers’ social support networks among Tsimane forager–farmers’ was corrected.

While it is commonly thought that patrilocality is associated with worse outcomes for women and their children due to lower social support, few studies have examined whether the structure of female social networks covaries with post-marital residence. Here, we analyse scan sample data collected among Tsimane forager–farmers. We compare the social g...

Introduction Cesarean delivery is associated with childhood obesity in urbanized and sanitized environments, but this is not well-studied across broader epidemiologic settings. We examine birth mode, household conditions, and child growth in a Yucatec Maya farming community with limited sanitary infrastructure. We test the hypotheses that household...

Previous research has evaluated the cognitive effects of pregnancy, yet only a handful of studies have specifically evaluated maternal attention. This will be the first study to investigate the effects of biological motherhood (M = 3.5 years postpartum) on attention network functioning. The Attention Network Test – Revised was selected to investiga...

Early‐life conditions shape childhood growth and are affected by urbanization and the nutritional transition. To investigate how early‐life conditions (across the “first” and “second” 1000 days) are associated with rural and urban children's nutritional status, we analyzed anthropometric data from Maya children in Yucatan, Mexico. We collected weig...

We examine the ways that water supply shapes lactation strategies and child morbidity patterns in Yucatec Maya subsistence maize farmers in México. We outline the history of Maya water use, with a focus on one subsistence farming community in northern Campeche. Prior to the community’s founding in the early twentieth century, the Maya lived in smal...

Objectives Cesarean delivery is linked to breastfeeding complications and child morbidity. These outcomes may disproportionately affect Latin American indigenous populations that are experiencing rising cesarean delivery rates, but often inhabit environments that exacerbate postnatal morbidity risks. We therefore assess relationships between birth...

Objectives Cesarean delivery may increase childhood infectious morbidity risks via altered birth exposures and subsequent immune, microbial, and epigenetic development. Many Latin American indigenous populations experience dual burdens of infectious and chronic diseases, and are particularly vulnerable to rising rates of cesarean delivery and assoc...

We examine the medicalization of birth in a Mexican Yucatec Maya farming community over the past 65 years. Our findings are drawn from longitudinal demographic data collection (1992–2014) and 56 maternal ethnographic interviews. We describe and contrast the maternal experience of three cohorts of women whose reproductive careers transpired in the c...

Across human societies infants receive care from both their mothers and others. Reproductive cooperation raises two important questions: how does allocare benefit mothers and infants, and why do caretakers help mothers when they could spend their time in other, perhaps more valuable ways? We use behavioral and biological data from three small-scale...

This article details the discussion following the first session of the conference, entitled "Time Allocation Across Subsistence Economies."

Objective: The epidemiologic link between cesarean birth and childhood obesity is unresolved, partly because most studies come from industrialized settings where many post-birth factors affect the risk for obesity. We take advantage of an unusual ethnographic situation where hospital and cesarean birth modes have recently been introduced among Yuca...

Early childhood growth has many downstream effects on future health and reproduction and is an important measure of offspring quality. While a tradeoff between family size and child growth outcomes is theoretically predicted in high-fertility societies, empirical evidence is mixed. This is often attributed to phenotypic variation in parental condit...

(A) Predicted estimates from best-fit models for height (cm). Includes population-specific Z-scores (Maya HAZ), WHO Z-scores (WHO HAZ), and Z-score changes (Maya HAZ Δ and Who HAZ Δ) at age 2.5 and age 5.0 for each predictor variable (see main text and S1 Text for explanation of calculation). For predictor younger siblings, boys and girls are calcu...

Constructing WHO and population-level Z-scores. (DOCX)

Fertility, maternal age, height and wealth status. (DOCX)

Population-specific Z-scores for Maya boys (n = 39) and girls (n = 36) ages 2.5–5.0 for (A) height and (B) weight. Graph plots monthly measurements taken from 2007–2011. (TIF)

Best-fit models for height and weight and predictor variables. See main text for explanation of how models were calculated. (DOCX)

WHO calculated Z-scores for Maya boys (n = 39) and girls (n = 36) ages 2.5–5.0 for (A) height and (B) weight. Graph plots monthly measurements taken from 2007–2011. (TIF)