Chelsea Conaboy, MOTHER BRAIN: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood
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[0:58]Chelsea Conaboy is the author of Mother Brain, How Neurosciences Rewriting the Story of Mother Hood.
[1:03]This is one of our guest-hosted episodes by Alison Fataki.
[1:06]Chelsea is a journalist specializing in personal and public health.
[1:09]She was part of the Boston Globes prize-winning team for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, and more recently has worked as a magazine writer with
[1:16]bylines at Mother Jones, Politico, the weak, the Boston Globes magazine, and others.
[1:21]She lives in Maine with her husband, their two young sons, and her own changing maternal brain.
[1:26]Hello, everybody. Alison Fataki here, and I am with Chelsea Conaboy, author of Mother Brain, How Neurosciences is rewriting the story of parenthood.
[1:37]Chelsea, thank you for chatting today.
[1:40]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:42]Oh, my goodness.
[1:43]Congratulations on this book on Mother Brain.
[1:45]I know as a mother of three myself, I found it to be very, very valuable, and I know.
[1:50]I know that's the case for many others. Can you tell us about this book and why you wrote it and how you wrote it?
[1:58]Yeah, this book really started with my own experience of of new motherhood.
[2:03]You know, my my first son was born in 2015.
[2:07]I had worked for a long time as a health and science journalist.
[2:11]The time I was an editor at a newspaper here in Maine where I live.
[2:16]And my son, I felt really kind of capable going into new motherhood.
[2:22]You know, I had a good job and a great husband and felt like I had done all the reading, you know that I possibly could.
[2:30]And I just felt like as informed as I could be and then my son arrived and I went through this, you know, major change and I really didn't have the words to describe what I was experiencing.
[2:46]And in particular, I felt like really overwhelmed with worry.
[2:51]And my son was born on on the small side. He was under six pounds and we had just moved into a new house.
[2:59]And I just, I worried about, I worried about his safety and his growth.
[3:04]And then I also worried about the worry itself. I felt like I was, it was somehow like crowding out the things that maybe I was supposed to feel like the overwhelming warmth and certainty at having arrived at motherhood.
[3:20]And so this book is really like the response to that for me and I went looking for answers and and really found them in the science of the parental brain and we really finding this research really kind of changed my complete outlook on on my early postpartum experience.
[3:39]You know, I wasn't realized really that I wasn't broken or like there wasn't some sort of missing maternal instinct for me, but I was going through this major people that was helping me to become the parent that might my son needed to be so.
[3:53]Yeah, you talk about this maternal instinct and this image so many of us have of just this instant mother love this rosy view that we see our newborn and we instantly fall in love and the instincts and the hormones will help us to know exactly what to do.
[4:12]That is about as accurate as the disney narrative of a young beautiful girl who meets her prints sight unseen, they fall in love and they live happily ever after right and so what is this narrative we are living with and why is it important that you examined it and sort of as you said offer a response to that.
[4:31]Yeah, so it is a fairytale it is not it is not reality so as I started really looking at the science and seeing how how much this was a period of of real development for a parent.
[4:46]And you know the science is on the new it is relatively new but we've had like the beginnings of it for half a century you know we've had this like pretty robust animal literature and then these brain imaging studies that have built on that in the last 20 years or so.
[5:01]I started really asking like why aren't we talking about this more why isn't it part of prenatal education or our broader cultural conversation about what it means to be a parent.
[5:11]And I went back to this idea that I kept coming back to this idea that we have it's because we have a different story in its place we have the story about maternal instinct and even if we don't you know when I was pregnant I don't think I would have.
[5:25]really recognize maternal instinct as like a fact like a scientific fact but it's still so embedded in how we experience pregnancy a new parenthood like it's so much a part of how we talk about that time of life.
[5:42]So if it's not maternal instinct it's at least this part this like belief that you know your baby is born and you're flooded with oxytocin and they're flooded with oxytocin and you begin breastfeeding and like the bond is sealed and it's just much more complicated than that.
[6:00]I went back and started looking at the history of that idea specifically it's it's entry into scientific theory I really recognize that it was not ever science it was really a you know religious man man who who were you know entrenched in cultural ideas of moral motherhood kind of cloaking that those beliefs in science.
[6:29]And then that being carried forward really belief not not not fact and that I wanted to kind of peel that away and see well what is the science actually telling us yeah.
[6:43]yeah gosh okay so I remember then I also had a baby in 2015 my first and I remember then when she came out finally after this long birth.
[6:53]I had had such a traumatic pregnancy and lead up to her arrival that I was so afraid that if I were to look at her and something were to be wrong with her I didn't think I would be able to handle that.
[7:08]process that and so I like could not bring myself to look at her and I remember the labor and delivery nurse saying look at your baby look at your baby she's here and I just remember thinking exactly as you said like there's something so wrong with me that I'm scared.
[7:21]I was scared I was scared and I was traumatized but anyway you are very honest in this book about your own experience with anxiety and you you go into you know I think you say one in five.
[7:33]new parents develop some sort of disorder or mood or anxiety around the postpartum period and you say there's there's a lot that we could be doing better here and talking about this more can you can you talk about this yeah so.
[7:51]it's tricky so one in five is like the commonly used statistic but the reality is that it's really hard to quantify it yes for a few reasons it's it's hard to study this there's still so much stigma around it and also the reality is that.
[8:08]pregnancy and labor and breastfeeding and new parenthood and new parenthood for non gestational parents included yeah it's such a spectrum of adaptation and distress so like the I actually believe that stress distress is kind of an inherent part of the process and so where where you kind of cut off what what's adaptive and what's.
[8:35]clinical or maladaptive you know what when does it be tip into like a place of being a problem it's really hard to to know and so in my mind what we actually need to do is normalize the fact that this just just happens for everyone and build up supports for everyone and so those people who who really struggle in it will sort of.
[9:00]have have support available to them, but also those of us who struggle just a little less you know and or perhaps have social supports around us already also will have resources and knowledge available to us and so.
[9:16]I guess the point my point is is this is a major stage of development for parents also and so often we spend all of this time looking learning about our bodies and what they're going through during pregnancy and then as soon as maybe arrived.
[9:33]and there isn't any focus on parent development and it's real it's real and it's and it's really fundamental it's neuro biological and so there are things that we can control in that time and there are things that we can't control in that time and we need to be prepared for all of that.
[9:52]you asked what can we do differently I kind of I typically talk about kind of three areas that we can do differently.
[10:00]One, our social policies are lack of paid leave in particular
[10:07]in this country is really shameful.
[10:10]There were one in six countries in the world
[10:12]that lack maternal paid maternity leave.
[10:16]And we have all of the reasons it's kind of already
[10:19]in terms of health outcomes and mental health outcomes
[10:23]and economic workforce reinforcement.
[10:27]Like it's good for the economy.
[10:28]It's good for families,
[10:30]but also it's good for giving parents this time
[10:33]of development for themselves to adapt to this role,
[10:36]to connect with their baby in the ways
[10:38]that they need to, the ways that their brains need to.
[10:41]And clinical care, you know,
[10:43]we have one standard postpartum six week appointments
[10:48]and the rest of our time, it's kind of a wasteland.
[10:51]And it doesn't have to be,
[10:53]we believe so many people to struggle before that six week mark
[10:56]and so many to struggle after that time.
[10:59]And, you know, the American College of OBGYNs
[11:01]has called for like a better improved approach
[11:04]and there hasn't been a lot of movements on that yet.
[11:07]And then the third arena I just think
[11:10]and I'm hoping that this book can be a part of this
[11:12]is just to change how we talk to one another
[11:15]about what new parenthood is and what it feels like
[11:18]and what we experience when we go through it
[11:21]and to make to normalize, you know,
[11:24]talking about the distress and the adaptation,
[11:27]you know, the benefits that come from these changes.
[11:30]Yeah.
[11:31]The changes are as significant in our brain
[11:35]as the period of puberty.
[11:37]You point that out.
[11:38]I was blown away by that.
[11:40]What is happening?
[11:42]Like what are the changes that are happening
[11:44]in our brains and bodies when we become parents?
[11:47]Yeah.
[11:48]So there are two things that really shape the parental brain,
[11:51]hormones and experience.
[11:54]And so that's true kind of across all parents.
[11:57]You know, we, you thought there's
[11:59]and other non-disational parents also have
[12:01]pretty significant hormonal shifts.
[12:03]And then our babies are these really powerful stimuli
[12:06]for the brain.
[12:07]So these hormonal shifts are kind of priming us
[12:09]to be ready to receive the cues that they give us.
[12:14]And in gestational parents in particular,
[12:17]it's this and I bet this will feel familiar to you
[12:20]but these changes sort of compel us
[12:23]that push us into this hyper-responsive period.
[12:27]So there's an increase in activity and connectivity
[12:30]in brain regions involved in motivation,
[12:33]meaning making and vigilance.
[12:35]And I see that as serving really two roles.
[12:38]One is to really keep us paying attention
[12:42]to our babies who need, who need our attention.
[12:45]Who are these tiny?
[12:47]Yes, exactly.
[12:47]vulnerable teachers who, for their survival,
[12:51]they need, they need our attention
[12:52]and we might not have the practical skills to care for them
[12:55]but we are attention keeps us trying, you know?
[12:58]And then the other point, the other role I see
[13:02]that really, that drive is to push us
[13:05]into this intense period of learning.
[13:07]We go back again and again and try to read their cues
[13:10]and figure out how to meet their needs.
[13:12]And over time, the systems in our brain
[13:16]that are really involved,
[13:19]previously have been involved in
[13:21]and reading our own body's cues
[13:24]and figuring out how to manage our own energy
[13:27]and meet our own needs.
[13:30]They're essentially like extended to now also include
[13:33]our children's needs and we get better over time
[13:36]at predicting how to meet them.
[13:38]And so our social cognition changes,
[13:40]those systems that are involved in learning another person
[13:46]and we also get better, it's thought we could get better
[13:48]at regulating our own emotions in that process
[13:51]and that those are the things that last,
[13:53]that emotion regulation, our social cognition
[13:56]and also our ability to like change with our kids,
[13:59]our flexibility and because they're constantly growing
[14:03]and changing and we have to adjust also.
[14:07]Yeah, yeah, you say it's so beautifully
[14:08]of the sense of self extends a little further
[14:11]to incorporate this human that has been born from us.
[14:15]So when you talk to people about the fact
[14:20]that you were researching and writing this book
[14:22]or now that the book is out there
[14:24]and you explain it as mother brain,
[14:26]oftentimes people say, oh mom brain, mom brain
[14:29]and it's this sort of like all I forget
[14:31]with on the calendar or I forgot the grocery list
[14:34]or whatnot.
[14:35]So can you talk about mom brain
[14:39]and the sort of this perception we have
[14:41]versus what you're going into here with mother brain?
[14:44]If we talk about mother's brains at all,
[14:46]normally we talk about that like caricature
[14:48]of the forgetful frazzled woman who can't keep it all
[14:52]together.
[14:53]And so there is research particularly during late pregnancy
[14:58]that that points to deficits in memory
[15:01]but it's they're small and they're typically small
[15:05]and temporary and what we see over time
[15:10]and instead is that they're,
[15:12]it's possible that there's cognitive gains
[15:16]and researchers are, so in the animal literature
[15:19]it's pretty clear that for example in rodents
[15:21]like rat mothers also have memory loss during pregnancy
[15:26]but then they gain all of these skills
[15:29]this like improvement in spatial memory
[15:31]and long-term cognition and then they're protected
[15:35]from the effects of stress and aging
[15:38]and so it's really clear that like the errors
[15:41]are benefit for them.
[15:42]And researchers are just getting past this idea
[15:46]of like trying to measure the memory deficit and women
[15:49]and starting to look like more holistically at what are
[15:53]like the what's the mental load in this time of life
[15:56]and how do we measure cognitive function within that context
[16:01]so like we have many more demands and how are we managing them
[16:06]and there are some like very early indications
[16:08]that we're managing them well so like there is growth
[16:12]in that time and then they're these fascinating sets
[16:16]of studies that look at older,
[16:18]the brains of older adults.
[16:20]I loved that.
[16:21]I loved your discussion about the grandparents.
[16:23]Yeah, the grandparents and then there are these studies
[16:26]that look at at brain imaging,
[16:28]these big catabanks of brain imaging in Australia
[16:32]and in the UK and compare so these are adults who are
[16:34]in their 50s, 60s and 70s been older
[16:37]and they're comparing parents and non-parents
[16:40]and finding that the brains of parents
[16:42]are what researchers refer to as younger looking.
[16:46]So they have fewer effects of aging
[16:49]and it's thought that like it makes sense
[16:52]when you think about it like parenting
[16:53]is this huge cognitive demand like we're constantly
[16:56]having to adjust and change and learn new things
[17:00]and do all of the things that that researchers know
[17:04]are protective against aging, you know,
[17:06]like keep working our brains in complex social ways.
[17:09]And so I just love those studies
[17:12]because they're such a counterpoint to this idea
[17:16]that we are hindered by motherhood.
[17:19]Oh my goodness.
[17:20]Exactly opposite, maybe true.
[17:22]Yeah, bring on all the anti-aging studies
[17:25]and prepare that.
[17:27]So what was your process like researching
[17:29]and writing this book?
[17:30]How was that?
[17:31]Oh man.
[17:32]So I left my job at the newspaper in 2017
[17:36]after my second son was born
[17:37]and I started freelancing full time.
[17:40]And I wrote a magazine story for the Boston Globe magazine
[17:43]about this research specifically about the maternal brain
[17:48]and how it helped me kind of grapple with my own experience.
[17:52]And I had been thinking that there probably would be a book
[17:55]involved or that there was a book there,
[17:57]but then that article really went viral.
[18:00]I mean, there was just so much interest
[18:02]and people really related to it.
[18:04]And I realized like, oh, there's an audience here for sure.
[18:08]And so I got a book deal in 2019 and I really did like,
[18:13]you know, probably six months of intensive research.
[18:16]And I was kind of ready to like start doing
[18:18]some reporting trips and buckle down
[18:21]to get the writing started and then the pandemic hit.
[18:25]Yeah, travel and research.
[18:27]Yeah, exactly.
[18:29]And so it really shifted how I was going to write
[18:34]and report the book and it really shifted like my time.
[18:38]And we had two young kids, my husband and I are both self-employed.
[18:41]So we did what so many people did and just started
[18:45]the job all splitting our days and working on weekends
[18:48]and finding the time wherever we could.
[18:51]And yeah, the reporting process was really interesting
[18:56]because it took me in so many different directions
[18:59]that I had an originally planned on,
[19:01]including into deeper into the work research on non-justational
[19:06]parents, deeper into evolutionary history,
[19:08]you mentioned grandmothers.
[19:10]And then I kind of in some ways got
[19:15]encouraged, I researched it.
[19:17]And so like it had a stronger voice in the end,
[19:20]I think that I had originally anticipated,
[19:23]which I think all of that was good for the book.
[19:26]And it really made me grapple in a deeper way
[19:32]than I expected with my own beliefs around parenthood
[19:37]and things like attachment theory.
[19:40]And just how what a good parent looked like.
[19:44]Yeah.
[19:45]Yeah, that was I loved when you talked about attachment theory
[19:47]so much good stuff.
[19:49]And how perfect that we are talking about mothers and brains
[19:54]and thinking on moms don't have time to read books
[19:57]while you were talking about how you found time.
[19:59]And
[20:00]Good news you did. What advice would you have with other aspiring writers with other authors?
[20:08]Oh, yeah, I mean, so my advice is I guess there's like a fearlessness that you have to have to do
[20:17]this work and particularly with like rejection, right? So one of my when I became a freelancer,
[20:25]you know, it's just a totally different world having to kind of be pitching all the time.
[20:31]And I think the same goes for writing book proposals and and one of my one of my good friends
[20:37]father who worked in finance, but he was like an advisor. So he was he was someone who early in
[20:42]his career had to do a lot of cold calls. And he told me that he came up with like a formula
[20:49]so that he he knew that he had to get, I don't know, just like pulling numbers out of there,
[20:54]like 15 nos before he would get a yes. And so he started thinking about every rejection as progress
[21:02]towards a yes. And that really changed how I felt about rejection. Like I started creating spreadsheets
[21:10]when I was pitching an article, I would have like three or four other editors lined up
[21:15]to pitch the article to next. So if I assumed I was going to get a no and I was just going to go on
[21:20]to the next one. And that that that like that really that like sense of rejection as progress
[21:27]really helped me. So so much. And there's a lot of that whether you're like pitching your book
[21:34]to people, you know, who you're hoping will do things like this a podcast or or if you're getting
[21:40]ready to pitch a book proposal, there's just so much rejection in this work. And you can't
[21:47]have to find a way to not take it personal and that that was really helpful to me to think about it.
[21:52]I'm like, okay, I'm one more one more step closer. That is so good. That is so good. And probably the
[21:59]the data seeker and analyst and you probably really appreciated the numbers.
[22:04]Yes. So just the whole idea behind that. Well, that is so great. Well, readers have not rejected
[22:09]this book. And so for readers who want to know all about you and keep up with your progress,
[22:13]Chelsea, learn more about Mother Brain. How can we connect with you? Yeah, they can find me at
[22:19]motherbrainbook.com and I have a newsletter there as well. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. So Chelsea,
[22:24]what are you working on next? Oh, that's a really good question. And I have obviously this wonderful
[22:30]book. Yes, I have some ideas that haven't completely come together yet. But I think we'll have
[22:36]like a similar mix of science and narrative and probably family and community, like figuring out
[22:44]how how can we change those things for the better. Awesome. Well, we will look out for that Chelsea
[22:50]Kanaboy author of Mother Brain. How neuroscience is rewriting the story of parent had Chelsea. Thank
[22:56]you so much for chatting today. Thank you, Allison. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this
[23:02]episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at
[23:06]Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
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[23:16]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[23:20]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.