Insights

Neuroscience for the people at the cot side. Writing on regulation, trauma and lived experience, from Lottie King and the NICU Neuroscience faculty.

The workforce has a nervous system too allostatic load burnout moral distress neonatal care nervous system informed care patient safety staff wellbeing vicarious trauma Jul 23, 2026

What sustained stress does to midwifery and neonatal teams, and why we need to look at physiology before it becomes culture.

We have become fluent in the language of workforce pressure. We talk about...

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Scaffolding the autonomic nervous system in maternity and neonatal care co-regulation maternity safety neonatal care nervous system informed care staff wellbeing trauma window of regulation Jul 07, 2026

A frightening event is not, on its own, a psychological injury. Whether it becomes one is decided by something else, and that something else is largely in our hands.

I have sat this last week or so w...

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Reframing Gut Feelings in Maternity and Neonatal Care as Data interoception maternity safety neonatal care nervous system informed care neuroscience parent experience Jun 23, 2026

First published by Lottie King on LinkedIn, June 2026.

When a parent says "something is wrong", what happens next tends to go one of two ways. Either the information is investigated, with testing, li...

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When the move closer to home reads as a threat in the NICU allostatic load interoception neonatal care nervous system informed care neuroception predictive processing repatriation Jun 15, 2026

Repatriation is one of the key milestones in neonatal care. A baby who once needed the resources of a tertiary unit is now stable enough to continue care closer to home, and the transfer is recorded a...

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Attunement in the NICU: matrescence, sensory cues and the neuroscience behind the struggle attunement bonding infant mental health matrescence neonatal care nervous system informed care oxytocin preterm birth Jun 12, 2026

Every Infant Mental Health Week, my feed fills with the word attunement. The noticing, the responding, and the importance of all of it for babies and infants in their development.

But I want to talk ...

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Occasional writing from Lottie on regulation, trauma and lived experience in neonatal and maternity care.