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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 writing and research focuses on the posited benefits of prolonged close physical contact and eye contact between mothers and children. Her book, Holding Time, helped to popularize a form of the controversial practice of attachment therapy. This proposed treatment for autism and problems in the mother/child relationship has been criticized as harmful to children and lacking plausibility as a treatment.