Observational Research
Understanding development from its origins
A better understanding of children’s emotional and mental wellbeing starts with an understanding of the prenatal period. As a result of a process called foetal programming, experiences during pregnancy influence enduring changes in the body’s and brain’s structure and function. Pregnancy-related factors include maternal wellbeing, social support, nutrition, and mental health.
Our work helps with:
Individual Cohort Studies
Dream Big birth cohorts follow the development of children from the fetal period to adulthood. While each cohort might have been conceived to address different issues of child development, all measured prenatal maternal adversity (mood and socio-demographic) and have repeated measures of offspring mental health functioning from early childhood into adulthood (planned for some of the cohort).
DREAM BIG Consortium (Harmonization and Replication)
Scientific replication of findings is a major problem in biopsychosocial research. Only about 10% of key findings are replicated. One reason for the lack of replication is that cohorts do not always assess the same developmental constructs, and, even when they do, they often use different measures to assess them.
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| 2022/03/01 | Our latest paper published in frontiers in neuroscience. See here. |
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Individual Cohort Studies
Dream Big birth cohorts follow the development of children from the fetal period to adulthood. While each cohort might have been conceived to address different issues of child development, all measured prenatal maternal adversity (mood and socio-demographic) and have repeated measures of offspring mental health functioning from early childhood into adulthood (planned for some of the cohort).
Our collaborators lead research studies which follow children from the prenatal period, into childhood, adolescence and adulthood: MAVAN (The Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability, And Neurodevelopment – Canada) and MAVAN-R (Canada) projects, ALSPAC (The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents And Children – United Kingdom), Generation R (Generation Rotterdam – The Netherlands), GUSTO (Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes – Singapore), MoBa (The Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study – Norway), and PREDO Prediction and prevention of preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction study – Finland).
Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is an UK community cohort of 13,867 mother-child dyads recruited between 1991 and 1992 designed to determine how genotype combines with environmental pressures to influence health and development.
The Generation R Study (GENERATION-R) is a Dutch population-based prospective cohort (Rotterdam) of 9778 families enrolled between 2002 and 2006 to assess development from fetal life onwards.
The Growing Up in Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) is a Singaporean cohort of 1176 mother-child dyads recruited from 2009 to 2011 to examine fetal development and epigenetic factors in early pathways to neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment (MAVAN) is a Canadian prospective cohort (Montreal and Hamilton) of 590 mother-child dyads recruited between 2003 and 2014 with extensive face-to-face experimental assessments of mother, child, and mother-child interactions.
Mental Health in Adulthood: Variability in Neurodevelopment and Resilience (MAVAN-R) is the adult extension of MAVAN that seeks to understand the effects of perinatal maternal adversity, early childhood experiences, and genetics of adulthood psychopathology and well-being.
Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MOBA) is a Norwegian cohort of 114,000 families recruited between 1999 and 2009 designed to assess environmental exposures on development.
Prediction and prevention of preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction (PREDO): Finnish cohort of 4777 mother-child dyads recruited from 2006 to 2010 to study preterm birth risks/outcomes.
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DREAM BIG Consortium (Harmonization and Replication)
DREAM BIG was established to overcome this pressing issue by developing and refining methods to retrospectively harmonize data across several international longitudinal birth cohorts studying the impact of early adversity on the development of psychopathology across the lifespan.
