Massachusetts General Hospital is home to the largest hospital-based research enterprise in the U.S., with an annual budget of nearly $1.3 billion in 2022. The Mass General Research Institute comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments.
But what do each of these groups do? Learn more about the individual labs and centers in our #ThroughTheMagnifyingGlass series, where we take a closer look at the teams that make up the Massachusetts General Research Institute.
In this post, we are highlighting the Dekel Lab within the Mass General Department of Psychiatry, led by Sharon Dekel, PhD!
What research do you perform, and why is it unique?
We perform clinical and translational research for the early detection, prevention, and treatment of childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder (CB-PTSD). Our research aims to develop and guide the implementation of evidence‐based screening and therapies for CB-PTSD in maternity wards in hospitals.
Prevention and early detection of an illness are the goals of modern medical care. There is currently a lot of stigma about maternal mental illness, and until relatively recently, postpartum mental health disorders were regarded as rare diseases, and there was limited funding for research. Now, with support from the NIH, we are working to fill these research and clinical gaps.
Our research integrates the fields of clinical psychology, developmental psychology, positive psychology, psychiatry, obstetrics, physiology, neuroscience, and computational methods to advance the clinical care of women following childbirth trauma, beyond their physical health.
We ask questions like:
- What are the factors that put a woman at risk for CB-PTSD?
- What are the symptoms of her condition?
- How is the disorder affecting her child?
- What are the mechanisms of this transmission?
- How can we develop therapies to treat the disorder?
We have built a unique dataset of over 6,500 postpartum women that includes rich information about their childbirth experiences and mental health.
The Dekel Lab within the Mass General Department of Psychiatry is led by Sharon Dekel, PhD. Dr. Dekel is an assistant professor of psychology in the Psychiatry Department at Harvard Medical School and Mass General. Since joining Mass General in 2013, Dr. Dekel has expanded her research and the fields of trauma studies and maternal postpartum wellness by investigating childbirth as a potentially traumatic event.
Meet the Team
Our team consists of people who represent many different disciplines. We work closely with Obstetrics Program at Mass General, and also have collaborators with expertise in neonatal, endocrinology, radiology, and computational science, including international collaborators. Through this collaborative effort, we brainstorm to formulate “big” research questions and work together to answer them.
A mission of our lab is to promote women and under-represented groups in science. The Dekel Lab team is currently composed of all female members. We offer various research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and research fellows, to promote the next generation of women scientists, psychologists, and physicians. This mission over the years has contributed to a sense of being “one big family” with team members coming from many diverse backgrounds, cultures, and countries. The people in our group have a passion for advancing research to improve women’s mental health.
With close to 20 lab members and multiple concurrent projects, our lab functions as a finely tuned machine to accomplish our research goals. The hard work of our team allows our ideas to evolve into real scientific work. It’s like a puzzle: every member, regardless of academic title, contributes an important piece, until each project is successfully completed.
What publication is really important to your ongoing research?
We have recently shown through our research that using advanced computational methods to analyze written text of short accounts of women’s childbirth experiences can inform the prediction of a woman who is likely to develop CB-PTSD. This work has been featured by the NIH. The results of our study provide proof of principle for the use of childbirth stories as a potentially low-cost, low-burden tool for early screening of maternal mental illness. And as the next step, we are aiming to test this tool in the clinic.
How does your research apply to everyday people's lives?
Around four million American women give birth each year. Our research can promote their welfare, the welfare of their children during a critical time of development, and in turn, the health of the adult offspring. Therefore, our research is important for supporting a healthy society.
Although most pregnancies are uncomplicated and result in healthy birth outcomes, the rates of severe maternal morbidity in the U.S. remain on the rise. An estimated 13% of childbearing women will experience potentially life-threatening conditions related to childbirth, for which Black individuals are at a much higher risk.
It is our hope that the novel therapeutic interventions being developed and tested in our lab to treat women exposed to childbirth trauma, and our efforts to identify biomarkers of this illness, may ultimately translate to the prevention of CB-PTSD.
What is something you wish everyone knew about the research you perform?
Maternal mental health is important. Our research has a strong educational component. Above and beyond leading to new discoveries, it is intended to increase societal awareness and recognition of the psychological distress that can arise around the time of giving birth and during the important transition to motherhood. We aim to eliminate the stigma against maternal mental illness and empower women to obtain the care and support they need.
We are studying a condition (CB-PTSD) that does not exist in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the handbook used by healthcare professionals in the U.S. and many other countries worldwide as the guideline to diagnose a person with a mental illness. Because of this, a provider may not recognize that their patient is suffering from CB-PTSD. This postpartum woman will be discharged from the hospital with her newborn if both are physically healthy, but her mental distress may go completely under the radar, with no treatment plan. This could lead to an unfortunate scenario, as the mother may be suffering from posttraumatic stress while still needing to attend to her newborn.
We are actively involved in various educational initiatives for the public. Our lab’s PI, Dr. Dekel, has been frequently interviewed for the media, including NPR, NBC’s The TODAY Show, The Atlantic, Psychology Today, Harper’s Bazaar, Goop, and elsewhere, about childbirth trauma and CB-PTSD.
The impact of our research findings extends beyond the fields of psychiatry and mental health. We study the stressors of childbirth that may undermine a woman’s mental health, and the insights we generate through research can guide routine obstetrical care and policies. For example, we found that unplanned Cesarean delivery is associated with reduced maternal mental health following childbirth, as is giving birth without the physical presence of a support person (friend/family member).
About the Mass General Research Institute
Massachusetts General Hospital is home to the largest hospital-based research program in the United States. Our researchers work side-by-side with physicians to develop innovative new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease.
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