Dr Koa Whittingham
MotherCare: Building online resources for mothers of infants one study at a time
Dr Koa Whittingham is a senior research fellow at The University of Queensland and a registered psychologist with specialisations in both clinical and educational/developmental psychology. Her research focuses on three key interests: (1) parenting, (2) neurodevelopmental disabilities and (3) acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and compassion focussed therapy (CFT). She is particularly passionate about the application of ACT and CFT to parenting. Koa is the author of Becoming Mum, a self-help book for the transition to motherhood grounded in ACT and the first author of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Clinician’s Guide to Supporting Parents.
The Session
MotherCare is an ongoing program of research with the aim to build evidence for brief, online resources for mothers of infants grounded in compassion-focused therapy (CFT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and tested in online randomised controlled trials (RCTs). In addition, the MotherCare research program includes a focus on understanding the relationships between birth, breastfeeding, maternal mental health and the mother-infant relationship. To date, mothers ≤24 months post-birth living in Australia and New Zealand have been recruited into three separate studies, with a fourth study in progress. Together, this program of research has documented the impacts of psychological flexibility and self-compassion in mothers of infants, and demonstrated the effect of brief, online resources grounded in compassion-focused therapy (CFT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on maternal mental health, self-compassion, psychological flexibility, and breastfeeding satisfaction. Alongside targeted interventions, light-touch, universally deliverable interventions are an important part of care in the perinatal period.