Skip to main content

Pregnancy Changes Your Brain

So says this study mentioned at webmd. Your brain evolves to handle the new threat... er... little one.

Ho hum, right? I know. But two things kind of caught my eye.

The first: 
According to study co-director Oscar Vilarroya: "The findings point to an adaptive process related to the benefits of better detecting the needs of the child, such as identifying the newborn's emotional state.
It occurs to me, having had triplets, that "detecting the needs of a child" and its "emotional state" are relatively easy. Early on, the child is either hungry, has pooped, is generally angry, or is content. Generally, if the child is screaming its upset. If the child isn't screaming, its content.

Determining a newborn's emotional state is as simple as reading their face. Is the newborn crying? Its upset. Is it cooing? Newborn is happy. Later, the second one goes away, but the rest generally remain.

Its about that simple with newborns.

At least now my theory that having kids made me a super hero has some serious scientific backing.

I noticed one other thing. And I like how they tack this on at the end. Apparently, if you get pregnant through fertility your brain experiences the same changes. Ground breaking, I know. But its right there:
The changes were similar whether women got pregnant naturally or through fertility treatments.
Really?

I get that its two different methods of conceiving. But this type of thinking is why we parents of multiples get questions about whether we conceived "naturally." Hell yeah it was natural. Why would fertility make one iota of difference? Because the egg and sperm met in a petri dish instead of a Fallopian tube? Because conception was given an scientific assist? Scientists might as well study whether conceiving on a couch, bed, or kitchen counter makes a difference. Honestly.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is Mocking Redheads Bullying? If Not, What Is?

Its Super Bowl time, and since my team didn't make it, I haven't been paying very close attention.  But I got to talking with Aaron Gouveia on Twitter after I noticed one of his tweets about how a redhead would never QB a team to said Super Bowl.  Essentially, Aaron was mocking redheads.  My team doesn't have a redheaded QB, so we are safe (for now!), but I mentioned to him that this might fall under the term of bullying.  Aaron, in case you don't know, is rightfully well known in the Daddy-bloggersphere for his excellent  Daddy Files blog.  Seriously, go read it now,  and follow @DaddyFiles on Twitter.  And before I really get going on this rant, let me say: I get it.  Even as great as Gouveia is, he probably can't hold candle to the prestige, money and social status of a Pro-Bowl NFL player like Andy Dalton.  Andy Dalton could never do another thing in the NFL and probably still have more name recognition, money and power than Gouveia ever will.  This isn't e

My Kids Believe Some Wild Things

First off, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. It is the holiday season, so this is going to be a quick and fun post. If you want something more serious, you can look my struggles with my daughter's self esteem  here , my blah attitude about the death of cursive here , and why I'm a very bad person here . All kids believe in some clearly wild ideas. Santa. The tooth fairy. Heck, some parents believe vaccines cause disease, so its hard to blame the kids. But mine might be taking it to new levels. For instance, my one son will repeatedly tell me how I'm the best Dad he knows. Its sweet. And gosh, its hard to deny. But I'm also pretty much the only Dad he knows. I guess his other point of reference is the Dad from Peppa Pig. Have you seen that guy? He's a half shaven, rotound pig with the manners you might expect of such a guy. Its a bit surprising he isn't usually adorned with a can of beer in his hand and food stains on his clothing. This suddenly sounds li

NIGHTMARE: Three Kids; One Invite

Its a triplet parents worst nightmare, really. I only have triplets, so most of what I;m about to say about singletons is conjecture and assumption, but here goes: I imagine that when you have three kids of different ages its easy when only one of them is invited to a birthday party. Any younger child is probably interested in where an older sibling is going, but is easily refocused. Older children probably just don't care what a younger child is doing, but to the extent they are invested, I'd think its easy to explain to them. After all, they are probably in different schools, or at least different grades. They have different teachers, different classmates, and while they may share some friends, those are largely different as well. Not so with triplets When you have three kids all the same age they attend the same  school; often in the same class (as ours do). So when only one of them receives an invite, as our daughter did, its hard not  to feel slighted. After all, t