Root Collaborates with Yale Child Study Center to Research the Impacts of Maternal Psychosocial and Parenting Stress on MAT Outcomes

July 31, 2023

The Root Center is collaborating with Yale University’s Child Study Center led by Dr. Helena Rutherford and Dr. Sarah Yip to study the stresses around pregnancy, infancy and perinatal opioid use disorder.


The study includes two visits during the third trimester and four visits after the baby is born. During pregnancy, the study focuses on assessing maternal psychosocial stress and maternal tolerance of infant distress alongside characterizing craving and withdrawal symptoms. One to four months post-partum, mothers participate in monthly assessments to further investigate psychosocial and parenting stress, along with addiction symptoms; MRI assessments are completed at milestones of 1 month and 4 months postpartum to identify neural mechanisms of responding to infant distress cues.


The overall aim of the study is to identify biobehavioral predictors of psychosocial and parenting stress both in pregnancy and post-partum for MAT outcomes.

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