NEW PAPER ALERT📢
A favorite paper of my career! ➡️ rb.gy/1scuc5 Mothers who participated in a prenatal #mindfulness intervention had babies with healthier #stress responses, suggesting psychosocial #pregnancy #intervention can positively shape infant #health! 🧵 1/
Check out the @UCSF web story on the paper here, written by the wonderful @BertholdJess: 2/ ucsf.edu/news/2022/03/4…
BACKGROUND
This study followed prior work by @Dr_Epel, me & team, which showed the #prenatal #intervention: reduced women’s stress & depression, increased physical activity, lowered diabetes risk. Here, we tested whether these health benefits extended to the developing child. 3/
WHAT DID WE DO?
At 6 months we measured infants’ #cardiovascular and #behavioral reactions to a stressor. We compared 2 groups: infants whose mothers participated in the prenatal #mindfulness group vs. infants whose mothers were not assigned to the intervention (TAU). 4/
WHAT DID WE FIND?
The 2 groups differed in #stress responses: 1) #Mindfulness infants showed immediate #cardiovascular response to stressors & recovered quickly. Non-intervention infants showed delayed cardiovascular response to stressors & no recovery. 5/
2) Mindfulness-group infants also behaviorally self-soothed more across the stress and recovery periods compared to non-intervention infants. 6/
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Cardiovascular and behavioral reactions to stress early in life are related to later risk for #physical and #mental #health. Understanding predictors of these early risk factors -beginning in #infancy!- sheds light on preventing long-term problems. 7/
THE BIG TAKEAWAY:
A group-based #psychosocial #pregnancy #intervention with #women affected babies’ biology and behavior! Interventions and policies for supporting the #mental and #physical #health of pregnant people/women may benefit TWO generations! 8/
Cheers to fabulous 1st author @anz_phd & shoutout to our wonderful co-authors on this paper: @Dr_Epel, @CassandraVieten, Nancy Adler, Barbara Laraia, Michael Coccia, Karen Jones-Mason, Abbey Alkon, and the remarkable #UCSF #SEEDstudy team and families that made this possible! 9/
Let’s take care of families during & after pregnancy to improve #health for them + #future generations! 10/
@CAChildrenTrust @First5CA @ZEROTOTHREE @CalEndow @ChildrenNow @UCSFPTBI @ucsfcvp @First5Center @First5Assoc @KidsPartnership @CA_OSG @DrDevikaB @Sarah_E_Crow #MomnibusAct
This great work supported by: #LisaStonePritzker @RWJF @nih_nhlbi
@UCSFChildrens @UCSFPsychiatry @UCSFBenioffOAK @UCSFPediatrics @IDHPtweets GRATITUDE to ALL! 11/
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