Faculty bio | Lab website

Jennifer Ablow is an academic expert in prenatal and postnatal stress, prenatal and maternal mental health, intergenerational transmission of well-being, attachment relationships, social determinants of health, and parent-infant prevention and intervention. She studies the prenatal environment and its long-lasting implications for later child development. In particular, she examines the effects of factors such as prenatal mental health, stress, early adversity, and nutrition on fetal development, infant emotional regulation and neurodevelopment. The goal of her work is to identify environmental and biological risk and protective factors of early life stress exposure, to identify who may be particularly susceptible or resilient to the development of psychopathology. Her research program includes the study of populations exposed to diverse forms of early life stress, disproportionately represented in populations of low socio-economic status including infants of mothers with depression and poor nutrition. She is involved in the development and facilitation of prenatal groups for women at risk for depression, mindfulness based parenting program for the early postnatal period, and video feedback dyadic parenting interventions for the promotion of attachment and emotional regulation.

Recent Media: 
The week's best parenting advice (The Week, Sept. 29, 2020)
Pregnancy during a pandemic: The stress of COVID-19 on pregnant women and new mothers is showing (The Conversation, Sept. 23, 2020)
Studying the "exquisitely sensitive” perinatal period during pandemic (KLCC, June 24, 2020)
New study looks at pregnancy during the COVID-19 pandemic (Around the O, May 18, 2020)
To Spot Kids Who Will Overcome Poverty, Look at Babies (National Public Radio, Feb. 25, 2013)
Crying baby draws blunted response in depressed mom's brain (e! Science News, Feb. 22, 2013)
Biological clue may foretell behavioral issues in infants living in poverty (University of Oregon, Feb. 19, 2013)