It’s hard to believe my practicum is already over! The past two months have gone by so quickly, and I felt mixed emotions leaving the hospital and the research team. While I felt happy about finishing my practicum, I felt sad to leave the wonderful people I’ve gotten to know this summer. Overall, my practicum was a very positive and formative experience that allowed me to learn and grow as a person and as a student. Getting a grasp on R programming, running statistical analyses, and writing a scientific article were all challenging in their own way, but I’m proud of what I accomplished throughout my practicum.
After completing our analyses, we found that consumption of growing up milk (a fortified milk given to children after breastfeeding cessation) in the second year of life was positively associated with a few neurodevelopmental outcomes, but the effect sizes were somewhat small. Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not observe an effect of socioeconomic status on this association. However, I still considered socioeconomic status when creating my evidence-based nutrition handouts for caretakers of young children. Growing up milk can be expensive, and since it isn’t necessary for adequate nutrition, my handouts emphasize iron-deficiency prevention, which includes feeding children iron-rich foods and being mindful of their dairy consumption.
Outside of my practicum, it’s been a very exciting time to be in Paris with the Olympics! Thanks to my amazing host family, I had the opportunity to go with them to a women’s soccer game at the Parc des Princes (the teams were Brazil and Japan). It was an unforgettable experience, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to attend an Olympic game in person. On the weekends, I’ve had a lot of fun exploring Paris with my host family and with some new friends I’ve met here. I also got out of the city one weekend to visit Brittany and enjoy some time at the beach. I’ll be sad to pack up and leave Paris soon, but I’m grateful for my life-changing experience here and look forward to coming back again sometime in the future.
-Caroline