Instructor of Pediatrics/Neonatologist
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Dr. Monthé-Drèze is an attending neonatologist and early career faculty in the Department of Pediatrics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA) and an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
In addition to caring for sick neonates in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Monthé-Drèze conducts clinical and translational research on the effects of maternal obesity on child outcomes. Her specific interests are on the effects of pre-pregnancy obesity and prenatal dietary quality on child growth and neurodevelopment, with a focus on inflammatory mechanisms which may underpin these associations. Using longitudinal cohorts, she has characterized the impact of in utero exposure to maternal obesity and poor dietary quality on offspring adiposity, growth trajectories, brain and neurodevelopment, and has investigated the mechanistic role of maternal obesity-related dysmetabolism (e.g., inflammation, glucose intolerance, altered fatty acid profiles). Her work has been published in high impact journals such as AJCN and JAMA Network Open. Given the neurodevelopmental programming effects of maternal obesity and the critical role of neural circuits in regulating eating behaviors, Dr. Monthé-Drèze’s long-term goal is to investigate early life programming by maternal obesity on neurobiobehavioral mechanisms that may underpin obesity risk in these offspring. She hopes this novel investigation into the neurocognitive basis of intergenerational obesity will translate into novel lifestyle interventions or therapies for women with obesity in the periconceptual period to improve offspring outcomes.
Her research activities have been supported by the American Academics of Pediatrics, The National Institutes of Health (Kirschstein National Research Service T32, Loan Repayment Program, and Diversity Supplement Awards), the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard, and the Harvard Medical School Diversity and Inclusion Community Partnership Faculty Fellowship.