PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Columbia establishes the Center for the Transition to Parenthood with funding from the Bezos Family Foundation

First ever research-to-practice Center devoted to optimal health for both parents-to-be and the developing infant

2023-03-30
(Press-News.org)

NEW YORK, NY (March 30, 2023)--With a transformational gift from the Bezos Family Foundation, Columbia will launch the Center for the Transition to Parenthood (TtP) in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob/Gyn). Supported by the most advanced scientific knowledge in the field, the TtP Center seeks to reinvent prenatal care, address the mental health of parents, improve the overall health of their infants, and promote family well-being.

The Center, established with a gift of $21 million from the Bezos Family Foundation, will develop, test, and put into practice a range of accessible educational tools for new parents to help reduce stress, improve social support, protect sleep, set intentions for parenting that take into account one’s own upbringing, prepare for postpartum isolation, manage couple conflict, and foster an understanding of fetal exposures that increase the risk of neurobehavioral disorders later in life. The TtP Center will be a pioneer in assembling these services and augmenting and accelerating applicable research to support interventions promoting optimal outcomes for parents-to-be and their developing children.

The Center will be led by Dr. Catherine Monk, the inaugural Diana Vagelos Professor of Women’s Mental Health in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Research Scientist at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Monk leads the Perinatal Pathways Lab at CUIMC.

“We can improve outcomes for new parents and infants by applying our knowledge of how parents’ well-being affects their offspring before birth and our understanding of what happens to the parental brain during and after pregnancy. It’s time we put this science into practice and change the standard of care,” said Dr. Monk. “The Bezos Family Foundation’s support enables us to develop successful models to enhance prenatal care and help build healthy families at their origins, in the prenatal period.”

The TtP Center will bring together what is known from the fields of perinatal psychiatry, obstetrics, developmental psychobiology, and neuroscience to focus on the earliest influences on children’s developmental trajectories—those that happen in utero—to prevent risk for mental health disorders in children. The work will involve an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, neuroscientists, and mental health clinicians, as well as community experts such as doulas, midwives and family medicine doctors, partnering with their Ob/Gyn colleagues.  The Center will engage community-based organizations, community health workers, and patients with lived experiences from diverse backgrounds to ensure equity in creating new perinatal care practices and to effectively develop materials that reflect the latest science.  Routine focus groups will provide insight into patient and provider experiences from the community that will be instrumental in developing materials made by and for the people who will use them. 

“We are thrilled to be able to build upon the support we offer to pregnant and postpartum patients as they transition to parenthood and grateful that the Bezos Family Foundation is making this expansion possible,” said Mary D’Alton, the Willard C. Rappleye Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Chair of the Columbia University Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. “Their commitment to fostering research on the earliest connections between parents and their infants is critical to further developing innovative programs that will have an impact well beyond Columbia.”

Starting in 2019 with support from the Bezos Family Foundation, Columbia launched an initiative to embed mental health professionals in its Department of Ob/Gyn to increase access to insurance-based mental health care, particularly during pregnancy, and enhance multidisciplinary collaboration.

“We are proud to support Columbia in launching the Transition to Parenthood Center to focus on this important period of development for infants and their families,” said Jackie Bezos, President of the Bezos Family Foundation. “Science is clear that the prenatal period is critical to the future well-being of families. With its strong team, deep roots in research, and commitment to collaborating with patients and community partners, Columbia is well-positioned to advance scientific discoveries and create research-based programs and models of care to improve the health and well-being of children and their parents." 

“I am looking forward to seeing this first-of-its-kind Center make meaningful improvements in the psycho-social health of new parents and their children,” said Katrina Armstrong, MD, Dean of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences for Columbia University. “The Bezos Family Foundation is a superb partner, and we especially appreciate their determination to help reduce disparities in the care received by pregnant women.”

Addressing a Public Health Need 

Even before the birth of a child, emerging parenthood is marked by changes in the brain comparable to that of adolescence. Meanwhile, in utero, the future child’s brain is shaped by biological cues related to a pregnant person’s well-being, nutritional status, stress, and mental health. While substantial research documents this two-generation brain plasticity, prenatal clinical services have not yet incorporated these findings into the standard of care.

An estimated 30% of pregnant women report psychosocial stress, including job strain and depression or anxiety symptoms, and nearly 12% of pregnant individuals meet criteria for a perinatal mental health condition; sadly, less than 50% of women in need of care receive it, and the rate is even lower among women of color. 

In the U.S., the prevalence of child neurobehavioral problems is significant: 6.1 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD, 4.4 million with anxiety, and 7 million are classified as disabled based on learning difficulties. Some of these problems have roots in the prenatal period, potentially related to high levels of maternal stress, anxiety, and depression.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Form is (mal)function: Protein’s shape lets bacteria disarm it

2023-03-30
Shigella bacteria can infect humans but not mice. In the March 29 issue of Nature, a team from UConn Health explains why. Their findings may explain the multifariousness of a key weapon of our immune system. Shigella infections cause fever, stomach pain, and prolonged, sometimes bloody diarrhea for as long as a week. The bacteria sicken 450,000 people each year in the US alone. Although most people recover on their own, children and those with weakened immune systems are at risk of Shigella ...

Thermal paint — MXene spray coating can harness infrared radiation for heating or cooling

Thermal paint — MXene spray coating can harness infrared radiation for heating or cooling
2023-03-30
An international team of researchers, led by Drexel University, has found that a thin coating of MXene — a type of two-dimensional nanomaterial discovered and studied at Drexel for more than a decade — could enhance a material’s ability to trap or shed heat. The discovery, which is tied to MXene’s ability to regulate the passage of ambient infrared radiation, could lead to advances in thermal clothing, heating elements and new materials for radiative heating and cooling. The group, including materials science ...

An improved, visible light-harvesting catalyst to speed up reactions

An improved, visible light-harvesting catalyst to speed up reactions
2023-03-30
Photocatalysis is the use of light to accelerate the rate of a reaction in the presence of a photocatalyst. The catalyst plays a crucial role in this process—it absorbs the light being shined onto it and makes it available in way that can help accelerate the chemical reaction and also enhance it. These catalysts are used for a variety of light-dependent reactions ranging from the production of paper to the conversion of carbon dioxide to fuel. Given these applications, the development of ideal photocatalysts is important. An ideal ...

Structure of 'oil-eating' enzyme opens door to bioengineered catalysts

Structure of oil-eating enzyme opens door to bioengineered catalysts
2023-03-30
UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have produced the first atomic-level structure of an enzyme that selectively cuts carbon-hydrogen bonds—the first and most challenging step in turning simple hydrocarbons into more useful chemicals. As described in a paper just published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the detailed atomic level “blueprint” suggests ways to engineer the enzyme to produce desired products. “We want to create a ...

Allies or enemies of cancer: the dual fate of neutrophils

2023-03-30
Why do cancer immunotherapies work so extraordinarily well in a minority of patients, but fail in so many others? By analysing the role of neutrophils, immune cells whose presence usually signals treatment failure, scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), from Harvard Medical School, and from Ludwig Cancer Center have discovered that there is not just one type of neutrophils, but several. Depending on certain markers on their surface, these cells can either promote the growth of tumours, or fight them and ensure the success of a treatment. By boosting the appropriate factors, neutrophils could become great agents of anti-tumour ...

Shining light on the mechanics of embryo development

Shining light on the mechanics of embryo development
2023-03-30
Summary Scientists have come up with a new method to study the mechanical properties of developing embryos with unprecedented speed The new method – line-scanning Brillouin microscopy (LSBM) – relies on a microscopy technique based on Brillouin scattering – a phenomenon where light interacts with naturally occurring thermal vibrations within materials. The method, which can be used to non-invasively study developing embryos in three dimensions and across time, was selected as one of The Guardian's ...

Buprenorphine initiation in the ER found safe and effective for individuals with opioid use disorder who use fentanyl

2023-03-30
                   Buprenorphine initiation in the ER found safe and effective for individuals with opioid use disorder who use fentanyl With historically high overdose death rates in U.S., multi-site NIH study reinforces importance of continued, uninterrupted access to addiction medication   Results from a multi-site clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that less than 1% of people with opioid use disorder whose drug use includes fentanyl experienced withdrawal when starting buprenorphine in the ...

Severe hepatitis outbreak linked to common childhood viruses

2023-03-30
A new UC San Francisco-led study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in the United States and 34 other countries in the spring of 2022. Pediatric hepatitis is rare, and doctors were alarmed when they started seeing outbreaks of severe unexplained hepatitis. There have been about 1,000 cases to date; 50 of these children needed liver transplants and at least 22 have died. In the study, publishing on March 30 in Nature, researchers linked the disease to co-infections from multiple common viruses, in particular a strain of ...

New nanoparticles can perform gene-editing in the lungs

2023-03-30
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have designed a new type of nanoparticle that can be administered to the lungs, where it can deliver messenger RNA encoding useful proteins. With further development, these particles could offer an inhalable treatment for cystic fibrosis and other diseases of the lung, the researchers say. “This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. We are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair ...

Racial disparities in pathological complete response among patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer

2023-03-30
About The Study: In this study of 690 patients with early-stage breast cancer, racial disparities in response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy were associated with disparities in survival and varied across different breast cancer subtypes. This study highlights the potential benefits of better understanding the biology of primary and residual tumors.  Authors: Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, M.B.B.S., and Dezheng Huo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Chicago, are the corresponding authors.  To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/  (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.3329) Editor’s ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study unexpectedly finds living in rural, rather than urban environments in first five years of life could be a risk factor for developing type 1 diabetes

Editorial urges deeper focus on heart-lung interactions in pulmonary vascular disease

Five University of Tennessee faculty receive Fulbright Awards

5 advances to protect water sources, availability

OU Scholar awarded Fulbright for Soviet cinema research

Brain might become target of new type 1 diabetes treatments

‘Shore Wars:’ New research aims to resolve coastal conflict between oysters and mangroves, aiding restoration efforts

Why do symptoms linger in some people after an infection? A conversation on post-acute infection syndromes

Study reveals hidden drivers of asthma flare-ups in children

Physicists decode mysterious membrane behavior

New insights about brain receptor may pave way for next-gen mental health drugs

Melanoma ‘sat-nav’ discovery could help curb metastasis

When immune commanders misfire: new insights into rheumatoid arthritis inflammation

SFU researchers develop a new tool that brings blender-like lighting control to any photograph

Pups in tow, Yellowstone-area wolves trek long distances to stay near prey

AI breakthrough unlocks 'new' materials to replace lithium-ion batteries

Making molecules make sense: A regional explanation method reveals structure–property relationships

Partisan hostility, not just policy, drives U.S. protests

The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: August 1, 2025

Young human blood serum factors show potential to rejuvenate skin through bone marrow

Large language models reshape the future of task planning

Narrower coverage of MS drugs tied to higher relapse risk

Researchers harness AI-powered protein design to enhance T-cell based immunotherapies

Smartphone engagement during school hours among US youths

Online reviews of health care facilities

MS may begin far earlier than previously thought

New AI tool learns to read medical images with far less data

Announcing XPRIZE Healthspan as Tier 5 Sponsor of ARDD 2025

Announcing Immortal Dragons as Tier 4 Sponsor of ARDD 2025

Reporting guideline for chatbot health advice studies

[Press-News.org] Columbia establishes the Center for the Transition to Parenthood with funding from the Bezos Family Foundation
First ever research-to-practice Center devoted to optimal health for both parents-to-be and the developing infant