Waisman investigators and researchers explore potential connections between a woman’s mental health symptoms and white matter development in the brain of her child at one month after birth. Read the full article at: https://news.wisc.edu/mental-health-in-pregnancy-affects-development-of-newborns-brains/
Mental Health
A Child’s Death Brings ‘Trauma That Doesn’t Go Away’
A recent story in the New York Times discusses the trauma that parents experience after the death of a child. In particular, elderly parents who lose a child are vulnerable both emotionally and pragmatically. Waisman …
Childhood stress can reconfigure biology, UW-Madison research says
Abused children tend to develop lifelong emotional and physical problems, and now UW-Madison scientists may have found a biological reason: Maltreatment appears to turn off a gene that regulates stress.
Early life stress can leave lasting impacts on the brain
For children, stress can go a long way. A little bit provides a platform for learning, adapting and coping. But a lot of it — chronic, toxic stress like poverty, neglect and physical abuse — can have lasting negative impacts.
Julie Poehlmann, Sesame Workshop help kids
“Lots of families didn’t know how to talk about it. Does a 3-year-old really understand when one of their parents in is jail?”
Helping children process their parent’s incarceration is an issue University of Wisconsin Professor Julie Poehlmann has been grappling with for more than 15 years. And for the last few years, she has been developing a unique way of communicating with children about some tough life questions.