Division of Child Psychiatry Research Seminar: Twenty years of project ice storm: Lessons learned about prenatal maternal stress and child development
The Child Psychiatry Research Committee is sponsoring a Child Psychiatry Research Seminar. Â This seminar is open to all staff and students. The seminar will be informal and encourage active audience participation and discussion.
Twenty Years of Project Ice Storm: Lessons Learned About Prenatal Maternal Stress and Child Development
Presenter: Â Susanne King, PhD,
Suzanne King, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ as well as a principle investigator at the McGill-affiliated Douglas Mental Health University Institute, both in Montreal, Canada. After graduate training in psychology and educational research in Virginia, she conducted post-doctoral research at the Douglas, studying the family dynamics of people with schizophrenia. Her results led to the study of risk factors for mental illness, and then of prenatal maternal stress in particular. She is currently running five studies of children exposed to natural disasters in utero in order to understand the nature and mechanisms of effects of prenatal stress.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will understand the value of distinguishing between what happens to a pregnant woman from what she thinks about what happened and her emotional reactions to it.
- Participants will understand the extent to which prenatal maternal stress predicts child development in the areas of cognitive, behavioral, motor and physical development.
- Participants will understand how the timing of a stressful event in pregnancy, and the sex of the child, moderate the effects of prenatal maternal stress.Â