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When Kelli Kelley awoke from her C-section 17 years ago, having delivered her son after just 24 weeks of pregnancy, her husband gave her a Polaroid of their baby. He was tiny, underdeveloped, eyes still fused shut, with translucent skin covered in fine hair, and lying in a sea of medical equipment and lines. To Kelley, he looked like a baby bird. Cut to her first visit to the neonatal intensive-care unit ( nicu ) to meet him: a cacophony of beeping machines, harsh lighting,...

When I was 42, I landed on my butt so hard I couldn’t imagine how it had happened. I found out that the beliefs and relationships I had built my life on and around were all lies, and my world and worldview came crashing down around me. From that place of desolation, at what was rock bottom for me, I had to figure out what was true and not true, what was right and wrong for me, who I was – not who I had become to be acceptable to others. I needed to figure out who was with me and to what...

Each month Prevent Child Abuse America's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Dr. Bart Klika, does a quick run-down of emerging research related to child abuse and neglect prevention. In this inaugural installment, Dr. Klika walks through some of the recent research into the effects of childhood trauma and how the lasting effects of this trauma is impacting mothers who participate in home visiting programs. Watch the video here

(Reuters Health) - Military women who give birth within six months of returning from deployment are twice as likely to have premature babies compared to other soldiers, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers examined data on 12,877 births to U.S. soldiers from 2011 to 2014 and found that, overall, 6.1 percent of these deliveries were premature. But for mothers who had returned from deployment within the past six months, 11.7 percent of deliveries were premature, versus just 5.9 percent of births...

Those federal funds will become available to states through the Bringing Postpartum Depression Out of the Shadows Act , passed in 2016 by Congress. The money can be used for screening, assessing and treating maternal mental health disorders, but the state Department of Public Health needs to apply. AB 1893 would require them to do so. About one in nine women nationwide experience symptoms of postpartum depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The California...

Council for a Strong America is a national, bipartisan nonprofit that unites five organizations comprised of law enforcement leaders, retired admirals and generals, business executives, pastors, and prominent coaches and athletes who promote solutions that ensure our next generation of Americans will be citizen-ready. Council for a Strong America has a 20-year track record of strengthening families, communities, the economy, and our national security. One if of the programs, ReadyNation is...

Around 12 percent of mothers in the U.S. experience depression, and that number is even higher for minorities and those that live in poverty. Beyond affecting their own health, maternal depression can greatly impact mothers' capacity to care for their children. Members of PolicyLab’s Intergenerational Family Services portfolio wrote a brief on how states can address maternal depression through actionable, evidence-based policy solutions. We hope this can be helpful in your work as well. You...

Aprel Phelps Downey What was your ACEs Aha moment? When did you first hear about ACEs and what impact did/does it have on you? How do ACEs impact you as a parent? How is your parenting impacted by past trauma? What’s been most helpful to you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What’s been most challenging for you as a parent parenting with ACEs? What has parenting taught you? What have you learned? How do you manage complex family relationships? What inspires/encourages and helps you? I know...

We now know that babies DO feel pain, and in fact, they are even more sensitive to it than adults. The study of baby’s experiences in utero and the first two years of life have led to the rise of early developmental trauma as a reality today, especially with the acceptance of implicit memory and that the body remembers.

Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris is a masterful storyteller. I learned in a conversation with her at Wheelock College before her presentation for the Brookline, MA organization Steps to Success , that before she decided to become doctor, Dr. Burke Harris wanted to be an author. Only after the smashing success of her TED talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime , when she was approached by a literary agent, did she find her way to writing. Her newly released book The...

The evidence is clear. When bad things happen to us as young children, we are at significantly increased risk for not only mental health problems, but also a wide range of physical health problems including asthma, heart disease, and even early death. These "bad things" all involve disruptions in caregiving relationships. A national movement directed at screening for ACEs in pediatric practices has emerged from this work. My suggestion that the implication of the Adverse Childhood...

Introduction This study examined how mothers’ Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) relate to their children’s developmental risk and assessed how the association is mediated through mothers’ depressive symptoms and fair/poor health. Methods Mothers of children aged between 4 months and 4 years were recruited from the emergency department of a children’s hospital between March 2012 and June 2015 and interviewed about ACEs, mothers’ depressive symptoms and health status, and children’s...