Meet the Pregnancy and Early Life Research Team

Dr Laura Dearden

The aim of our research is to find out how obesity during pregnancy alters development of the baby’s hypothalamus- an area of the brain that is essential for regulating food intake- and leads to increased food intake and obesity later in life.

This research will address an important gap in our knowledge of how obesity during pregnancy affects the long- term metabolic health of offspring. It is currently not feasible to ensure all women enter pregnancy with a healthy BMI, so interventions to improve the health of offspring exposed to obesity in pregnancy may need to occur during pregnancy or even after birth. An understanding of the mechanisms at play during pregnancy will enable us to a) better advise individuals who have obesity during pregnancy and b) develop intervention strategies to stop the inter-generational transmission of obesity risk.