Raising a child without the village? Social support and maternal wellbeing in the time of COVID-19 – in collaboration with Emily Emmott (UCL) this project is collecting quantitative and qualitative data on how social distancing measures are impacting the flow of social support through maternal social networks and the impact this is having on maternal emotional wellbeing and mother-infant relationships. Click here to find out more about the project.

Social support, maternal experience, and infant feeding – in collaboration with Abbey Page (LSHTM) and Emily Emmott (UCL) this project investigates the different kinds of support mothers of infants in the UK receive from different sources (such as fathers, grandmothers and professionals), and the impact this has on maternal experience and infant feeding. Findings will contribute to public health understandings of how best to support mothers during the first few years of their children’s lives. Click here to find out more about the project and here for events related to it.

Evolutionary approaches to postnatal depression – in collaboration with Sarah Johns (University of Kent) this project takes an evolutionary approach to postnatal depression, and in doing so aims to more fully understand the consequences of the condition and to identify novel risk factors to aid prevention. Click here for more information.

Infant feeding ideology, expectation, and reality – in collaboration with Abbey Page (LSHTM), Emily Emmott (UCL), Rebecca Sear (LSHTM) and Sylvain Viguier (Graphcore) this project is tackling methodological limitations which currently prohibit causal inference when it comes to infant feeding decisions. We are developing a novel mobile app to collect daily data on women’s infant feeding experiences and decisions. The app will allow mothers to track their own feeding journeys, whilst facilitating exploration of breastfeeding narratives and feeding behaviour in unprecedented depth. Click here for more information.