Katherine Nelson-Coffey
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Psychology
Becoming a parent changes social life. New mothers and fathers often see friends less and may feel lonely.
- Fields
Psychology
Public Health & Epidemiology
- Topics
social connectedness
loneliness
transition to parenthood
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Track changes in loneliness and social connectedness among first-time expecting mothers and fathers from pregnancy through four months postpartum.
- Test whether changes in social connectedness predict parents' postpartum depression, anxiety, birth-related PTSD symptoms and well-being, independent of other social processes such as social support.
- Examine whether parents' social connectedness relates to infant development, measured by delivery outcomes, Bayley Scales and temperament, and to parental sensitivity, bonding and reflective functioning.
- Test whether parents' mental health is a pathway linking social connectedness to child outcomes.
More about the research
Up to 40% of new parents experience postpartum mood disorders, which can affect their children's development. Social connectedness, how close people feel to others, is linked to better mental and physical health. It also overlaps only partly with network size, relationship satisfaction or social support. Yet few studies have tracked how connectedness changes across the transition to parenthood or how it affects parents and babies.
Why it matters
Postpartum mood disorders are common and can harm child development. Showing how mothers' and fathers' feelings of connection affect their own mental health and their infants could support new interventions that build social connectedness during the perinatal period. Such interventions could benefit parents, their babies and the whole family.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Julie Wargo Aikins
Wayne State University, MI·Psychology
Test whether disrupted maternal representations of the child, measured with the Working Model of the Child Interview, stay stable from the third trimester of pregnancy to when the child is two years old, in 99 women living in high-risk settings.
Judith Morgan
University of Pittsburgh, PA·Psychology
Test whether coaching depressed mothers to encourage their child's positive emotions, using PCIT-ED modules, increases 4- to 6-year-olds' neural reward response, measured with the RewP and LPP event-related potentials, in a 180-family randomized trial.
Pervez Sultan
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test the feasibility and acceptability of Written Exposure Therapy, a five-session expressive writing treatment, and Capnometry Guided Respiratory Intervention, a home breathing program, in a randomized pilot trial of 60 postpartum patients with PTSD symptoms.
The school
Arizona State University Campus Immersion: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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