The contributions of working memory and recollection to academic achievement are typically examined separately and most often with children who have learning difficulties. This study is the first to observe both types of memory in the same study and in typically developing children. Academic achievement focused on standardized assessments of math fluency, calculation, reading fluency, and passage comprehension. As noted in previous studies, working memory was associated with each assessed measure of academic achievement. Recollection, however, specifically contributed to math fluency and passage comprehension. Thus, recollection should be considered alongside working memory in studies of academic achievement.

This study compares 796 pregnancy outcomes at a maternity center (BMC) with 804 hospital (TJUH) pregnancy outcomes. The samples of pregnant women from the participating institutions were matched on sociodemographic characteristics; analysis of outcomes was performed controlling for medical-obstetric risk. Differences between the institutions were found mainly among women with low intrapartum risk. For these women, neonatal morbidity and length of infant nursery stay were lower at BMC IntroductionDuring the past decade, alternative approaches to conventional in-hospital maternity care have increased in number and visibility. Their purpose is to offer parturient women a satisfying birth experience in a safe environment and at lower costs than conventional care. Growing attention to alternative birth settings was recently expressed in the report of the National Academy of Sciences Committee concerning the Assessment of Alternative Birth Settings.' Although the safety of such alternative approaches is of paramount importance and has been the subject of considerable controversy,2 little information is available to allow an objective evaluation of their safety. Published reports on birth centers as well as in-hospital alternatives have been largely descriptive.3-5 Only one published study of an inhospital alternative birthing center included a comparison

Little information is available on infant behavioral development outcomes of prenatal iodine supplementation in regions of mild to moderate iodine deficiency. Studies performed to date, all of which relied on global developmental assessments, have yielded inconsistent findings with regard to psychomotor development, negative findings with regard to mental development, and no information as to the development of specific cognitive functions. Our review of these studies leads us to suspect that the use of global developmental assessments might partially explain the negative and inconsistent findings. To identify cognitive processes that might be sensitive to prenatal iodine supplementation, we examined the timing of thyroid hormone action on specific brain systems. The development of infant visual attention is sensitive to thyroid hormone during the early prenatal period, when the fetus is entirely dependent on maternal thyroid hormone. For this reason, infant visual attention has the potential to be a sensitive measure of infant outcomes in prenatal iodine supplementation studies. We suggest the assessment of infant visual attention, with follow-up examination of childhood executive functions, as a means of capturing the effects of maternal iodine deficiency and prenatal iodine supplementation on specific cognitive processes. In particular, we propose comparison of infant performance on global developmental tests and specialized tests of visual attention in pilot trials of prenatal iodine supplementation in regions of mild to moderate iodine deficiency. Only by comparing the 2 types of tests side by side will it be possible to establish whether the use of a sensitive measure of infant visual attention will increase the reliability of such supplementation studies. Recognizing that exposure misclassification may also provide a partial explanation for the inconsistent neurodevelopmental outcomes in previous studies, we suggest that urinary iodine concentration or creatinine-corrected iodine excretion be monitored regularly in such trials throughout the prenatal period.