Thursday, 17 May 2012

Professor Suzanne King is touring Australia this month to discuss the effects that natural disasters can have on pregnancy.

The Australian Catholic University (ACU) Visiting Scholar will deliver a series of talks on prenatal stress studies concerning children exposed to natural disasters in utero.

From McGill University, Canada, Professor King is currently running three prenatal stress studies including Project Ice Storm, The Iowa Flood Study, and the QF2011 Queensland Flood Study.

Director of the Midwifery Research Unit at ACU and Mater Medical Research Institute (MMRI), Professor Sue Kildea, is a contributing researcher to the QF2011 study and said Professor King’s research is highly valuable.

"This is the only study of its kind, and is now the third longitudinal post-disaster study of prenatal maternal stress and its effects on infant and child development,” she said. “Professor King has set up two other projects, but the Brisbane study has managed to recruit women, and collect information on psychosocial status and biological samples."

Professor King will present various pregnancy stress studies such as Prenatal Maternal Stress and Developmental Psychopathology – Exploiting Natural Disasters and Hardship, Using Natural Disasters to Study the Effects of Prenatal Maternal Stress on Human Development and Distress from a Natural Disaster in Pregnancy: Methods and Challenges in Prenatal Maternal Stress Research.

She will be involved in various presentations and workshops in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.  

SYDNEY
Friday 18 May, 2.30-5pm - Fetal programming and offspring mental health outcomes seminar, Burwood Education Centre, St John of God Hospital, Burwood

MELBOURNE
Wed 23 May, 10am-12.30pm – The effects of prenatal exposure to a natural disaster on physical, cognitive, behavioural and cognitive development in infancy and childhood seminar and panel discussion, ACU Melbourne Campus, Fitzroy 

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