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Helena Rutherford

Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine's Child Study Center
Academia
USA

About Helena

Helena Rutherford, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center in New Haven, CT, and the director of the Before and After Baby Lab (The BABL). Her research examines the neuroplasticity of the parental brain during pregnancy and the postpartum period, employing neuroimaging, behavioral, and physiological approaches.

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Stories by Helena

  • Parenthood & Caregiving

“Becoming a parent is a developmental process.”

Do we become a parent when a child is born, or long before that, when the prospect of parenthood first takes shape?

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Birth of a Parent Podcast

Featured work

Academic Paper

A Role for Fetal Movement in Shaping Maternal Neurodevelopment

Emerging evidence suggests that the maternal brain undergoes significant change during pregnancy, which may serve to prepare the individual for caregiving, including increased maternal responsiveness. It has been proposed that fetal movement may play a role in shaping maternal neurodevelopment during pregnancy, including increasing responsiveness to infant cues. In the current study, we examined links between fetal movement and neural responses to infant cues in 22 primiparous pregnant women.

Academic Paper

Anxiety and neural responses to infant and adult faces during pregnancy

Women are vulnerable to anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum. However, little is known about antenatal anxiety and neural processing of infant-relevant information. In this experiment, the N170, P300, and LPP (late positive potential) event-related potentials were measured from 43 pregnant women as they viewed infant and adult faces, which were either neutral or distressed in expression. Mother’s self-reported anxiety levels were also assessed.

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