Jennifer C. Ablow

Jennifer Ablow is an academic expert in prenatal and postnatal stress, prenatal and maternal mental health, intergenerational transmission of well-being, attachment relationships, social determinants of health, and parent-infant prevention and intervention. At the University of Oregon, she is an associate professor of psychology. Her research examines the prenatal environment and its long-lasting implications for later child development. In particular, she examines the effects of factors such as prenatal mental health, stress, early adversity, and nutrition on fetal development, infant emotional regulation and neurodevelopment. The goal of her work is to identify environmental and biological risk and protective factors of early life stress exposure, to identify who may be particularly susceptible or resilient to the development of psychopathology. Her research program includes the study of populations exposed to diverse forms of early life stress, disproportionately represented in populations of low socio-economic status including infants of mothers with depression and poor nutrition. Ultimately, the goal is to identify particularly sensitive periods of development and forms of stress that, when targeted for preventative intervention, will mitigate the negative health effects early life stress. Clinically her focus is on the perinatal period. She is involved in the development and facilitation of prenatal groups for women at risk for depression, mindfulness based parenting program for the early postnatal period, and video feedback dyadic parenting interventions for the promotion of attachment and emotional regulation. Dr. Ablow earned her doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley, and completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine.