Mateen R Shaikh

1. Background Feathers are unique to birds and are critical to nearly every aspect of their biology, including flight, thermoregulation and visual communication [1]. Each year, birds must exchange old feathers for fresh ones by moulting [2,3]. An energetically expensive stage of the annual cycle [4–8], moulting requires specific resources to produce high-quality feathers.

Introduction Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in communication and social skills, repetitive stereotyped behaviors, as well as cognitive impairment. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that ∼1 in 59 children have been diagnosed with this disorder in the United States, with incidences occurring in all socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial groups (Baio et al. 2018).

Background: Canada is an ethnically diverse nation, which introduces challenges for health care providers tasked with providing evidence-based dietary advice. Objectives: We aimed to harmonize food-frequency questionnaires (FFQs) across 4 birth cohorts of ethnically diverse pregnant women to derive robust dietary patterns to investigate maternal and newborn outcomes.