The Nurture Science Program at Columbia University Medical Center is a unique research program rooted in a new, evidence-based understanding of the critical role emotional connection plays in healthy child development.
Our multidisciplinary team is committed to rigorous research, and continues to develop and test nurture-based therapies that support emotional connection to help children and families address, and even avoid, emotional, behavioral, and developmental challenges.
What We Hope to Achieve
Millions of children suffer from emotional, behavioral, and developmental disorders that can be addressed or prevented. Current treatment strategies often are not effective. The Nurture Science Program’s work can help children and their families.
Over the past 10 years, the Nurture Science Program has amassed considerable evidence to support interventions that advance the child-family emotional connection that is critical to healthy child development. Imagine the possibilities when all children and families have this kind of support.
4 Ways to Connect with Your Baby During a Pandemic
Over the course of this extraordinarily difficult and scary year, masks have saved countless lives. While masks will continue to protect us from the virus, they also pose some challenges to emotional connection between babies and mothers. Luckily, those challenges can be overcome.
Family Nurture Intervention Leads to Better Cardiac Regulation 5 Years Later for Mom & Baby
The prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One has published our findings that Family Nurture Intervention (FNI) increases autonomic regulation in preterm infants and their mothers at 4-5 years post-intervention. Here you will find a Q&A with Dr. Martha G. Welch MD and Dr. Michael Myers PhD about these findings and what they mean for parents, babies, and families.
In Partnership with Einhorn Collaborative
Times of crisis, as challenging and devastating as they are, can also reveal what truly matters. For most of us, 2020 was an incredibly difficult year, filled with fear, stress, and grief, but it also marked the first time many of us told our loved ones how much we value and love them; in their absence, we realized how vital human connection is to our health and well-being.
Emotional Connection Through Storytime: Reach Out and Read & The Nurture Science Program
For more than 30 years, Reach Out and Read has educated pediatricians, family doctors, and nurses about early reading. We’re so excited about the far-reaching potential that our partnership with Reach Out and Read creates.