My research focuses on the influence of different maternal stimuli on quadruped mobility in newborns. We know that from birth, the newborn is able to move independently on all fours on its mother's belly. This ability is still too often considered as a reflex to go to the breast and destined to disappear in the first months of life. However, studies suggest that it may be related to the future and mature walk, modifiable by environmental stimuli.
The purpose of my PhD is to understand the impact of the maternal voice, the mother tongue and the maternal smell on the locomotion of the newborn. It thus makes it possible to study whether, contrary to this idea of reflex, the quadruped mobility of the newborn would not be already controllable on a cortical level. My research is done at the "babylab" at the Port-Royal maternity of Cochin hospital. I work under the direction of Marianne Barbu-Roth.