How a mother's PTSD can affect her baby's early emotions and bonding
Mechanistic links between maternal PTSD and early infant emotional development
This project looks at how a mother's PTSD symptoms affect her ability to bond with her infant and how that shapes the baby's early emotional and stress responses.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Emory University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Atlanta, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11144553 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
If you take part, researchers will enroll mothers with and without posttraumatic stress symptoms and their infants and observe interactions to measure maternal warmth, responsiveness, and emotional connection. They will record mothers' responses to infant cues and collect measures of infants' emotional behavior and biological stress markers such as heart rate and related brain activity. The team will compare patterns in mothers with PTS to those without to identify links between maternal emotion regulation and infant outcomes. The goal is to map behavioral and biological pathways in early infancy that could explain intergenerational risk.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal candidates are postpartum mothers who have experienced trauma or have PTSD/posttraumatic symptoms and their infants in the early months of life.
Not a fit: Families without maternal trauma or PTSD, or children beyond early infancy, are unlikely to receive direct benefit from participating.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could point to ways to support mothers with PTSD and reduce early emotional and stress-related risks for their infants.
How similar studies have performed: Prior research has linked maternal PTSD to child emotional problems, but detailed behavioral and biological mechanisms in early infancy are still relatively novel and underexplored.
Where this research is happening
Atlanta, United States
- Emory University — Atlanta, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Lott, Abigail Powers — Emory University
- Study coordinator: Lott, Abigail Powers
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.