Martha G. Welch

Martha G. Welch (born June 21, 1944) is an American physician and researcher specializing in the fields of infant and child development. Welch currently serves as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry in Pediatrics and Pathology & Cell Biology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), where she is Co-Director of the Nurture Science Program. Welch’s research focuses on the biological mechanisms of nurture and the ways they can be utilized to provide new interventions for the prevention and treatment of developmental and behavioral disorders. The term ‘nurture’ is used by scientists within the Nurture Science Program to describe mother/parent-infant/child interactions which have a foundational role in promoting optimal emotional and behavioral development, such as holding, touching, breast feeding and communicating emotionally.

Education and Early Life

Martha Grace Welch was born in Buffalo, New York and raised in Eggertsville, New York. Welch’s great, great grandfather, Thomas Bramwell Welch, a physician and a dentist was the inventor of the pasteurization process to prevent the fermentation of grape juice in 1869. Thomas Bramwell, along with his son, Charles Edgar Welch, also a dentist, started Welch’s Grape Juice Company in 1893. The company later became Welch Foods headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966 from New York University, Welch attended Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she earned her medical degree in 1971. Following medical school, Welch completed a residency in General Psychiatry (1972-1974) and a Fellowship in Child Psychiatry (1974-1977) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She became a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology on November 30, 1977.

Career Path

Welch first became interested in the possible treatment of autism during her fellowship. From 1975 to 1997, she operated a private practice, specializing in the treatment of emotional, behavioral and developmental disorders, including autism, maintaining offices in New York City and Greenwich, CT. In 1997, Welch left her practice to pursue a career in academia. She joined the faculty at Columbia University Medical Center’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in the Department of Psychiatry. Here, she began preclinical research investigating secretin and oxytocin in the brain and the effects of combined oxytocin/secretin on an animal model of inflammatory bowel disease. In 2004 she began a collaboration with Michael D. Gershon M.D. pioneering research on the role of oxytocin in the gut. Drs. Welch and Gershon later established the Columbia University Brain Gut Initiative to further their understanding the mechanisms of nurture and they condition the brain-gut axis. In 2008 Welch was jointly appointed in Columbia University’s Department of Pathology and Cell Biology. In 2010 Welch was jointly appointed in Columbia University’s Department of Pediatrics, where she is conducting research on Family Nurture Intervention in the neonatal intensive care unit of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In 2013, Welch became Co-Director of the Nurture Science Program in the Department of Pediatrics, whose mission is to translate preclinical and clinical research into effective family intervention models and to help implement and disseminate these parenting practices and interventions to improve the health and well-being of children and families.

Patents

Welch holds U.S Patent No. 7,884,076 B2 for novel Multi-peptide Regimen for the Treatment of Autistic Spectrum, Behavioral, Emotional and Visceral Inflammation/Autoimmune Disorders. Issued February 8, 2011.

Awards and Honors

• 2014 Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Columbia University. College of Physicians & Surgeons
• 2013 P&S Alumni Lifetime Learning Award
• 2011 Columbia University Alumni Medal for Meritorious Service
• 1995 Middlebury College Distinguished Alumni Award

Personal Life

Welch lives in New York City with her partner, Robert J. Ludwig who is an inventor and managing director of the Nurture Science Program at Columbia University Medical Center's Department of Pediatrics. She has one son, Thomas Bramwell Welch-Horan MD, and two grandsons living in Houston, Texas. Her mother lives in Greenwich, CT.

Further Reading and Research Authored and Co-authored by Martha G. Welch

"Oxytocin modulates markers of the unfolded protein response in Caco2BB gut cells” Cell Stress Chaperones. 2014 Jul;19(4):465-77. doi: 10.1007/s12192-013-0473-4. Epub 2013 Nov 6.

"Electroencepalographic activity of preterm infants is increased by Family Nurture Intervention: A randomized Controlled Trial in the NICU" Clinical Neurophysiology. 2014 Apr,125(4):675-84. doi: 10 1016/j.clinph.2013.08.021. Epub 2013 Oct 17.

“Randomized Controlled Trial of Family Nurture Intervention in the NICU: Assessments of Length of Stay, Feasibility and Safety.” BMC Pediatrics 2013, 13:148  doi:10.1186/1471-2431-13-148

“Oxytocin Modulates mTORCI Pathway in the Gut” Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2013 Mar 15;432(3):466-71. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2013.01.121. Epub 2013 Feb 11.

“Family nurture intervention (FNI): methods and treatment protocol of a randomized controlled trial in the NICU” BMC Pediatrics 2012, 12:107. doi: 10.1186/1471-2431-12-107

“Cutting the vagus nerve below the diaphragm prevents maternal potentiation of infant rat vocalization” Dev Psychobiol. 2012 Jan;54(1):70-6. doi: 10.1002/dev.20577. Epub 2011 July 14.

“Pi3/Akt responses to oxytocin stimulation in Caco2BB gut cells” J Cell Biochem 2011 Nov;112(11):3216-26. doi: 101002/jcb.23243.

“Combined administration of secretin and oxytocin inhibits chronic colitis and associated activation of forebrain neurons” Neurogastroenterol Motil 2010 Jun;22(6):654-e202. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2982.2010.01477. x. Epub 2010 Mar 4.

“Expression and developmental regulation of oxytocin (OT) and oxytocin receptors (OTR) in the enteric nervous system (ENS) and intestinal epithelium” J Comp Neurol. Jan 10, 2009;512(2): 256-270. doi: 10.1002/cne.21872.

“Prolonged parent-child embrace therapy among 102 children with behavior disorders: Outcomes and underlying mechanisms” Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2006 Feb:12(1):3-12. Epub 2005 Nov 23.

“Brain effects of chronic IBD in areas abnormal in autism and treatment by single neuropeptides secretin and oxytocin” J Mol Neurosci. 2005;25(3):259-74.

“Secretin: Hypothalamic distribution and hypothesized neuroregulatory role in autism” Cell Mol Neurorbiol. 2004. Apr;24(2):219-41.

Welch M.G. (1988) Holding Time: How to Eliminate Conflict, Temper Tantrums, and Sibling Rivalry and Raise Happy, Loving, Successful Children. New York: Simon and Schuster. London: Century Hutchinson, 1989. New York: Fireside, 1989. Editions in German, 1991; Italian, 1991; Japanese, 1992; Finnish 1995.

Welch, M.G. (1983) ‘Retrieval from autism through mother-child holding.’ In N. Tinbergen and E. Tinbergen (eds) Autistic Children – New Hope for a Cure. London and Boston: George, Allen and Unwin.