Chapter 5: The Mommy Brain

It's strange that, looking back over this chapter, I didn't underline nearly as much stuff or put in as many post-it notes as I did in other chapters, even though I found this one just as interesting. I did put a heart around the name Ellie on page 102, but that is because it is my sister's name and it is actually spelled the same way :)

The first thing I have underlined is that giving birth is "the pelvic equivalent of expelling a watermelon through your nostril" (101)!!! That is a scary thought, though when I read it to my grandma, she laughed and said it was a great analogy! It is so amazing what the female body goes through and can do in order to reproduce.

I now have an explaination about why my mom forgot so much stuff when she was pregnant with my brother! We kept telling her that the baby was stealing her brain, but we had no real basis for it. Yesterday they were talking about this very issue on the radio (105.1) and I almost called them and told them about this book!

I loved the part about men who get sympathy symptoms of both pregnancy and the after effects. I have heard of men getting something like morning sickness and sympathy pains, but I didn't realize that the woman's body gives signals to the man's body that will help her. Like that new fathers' testosterone levels go down (104). I bet this can be really helpful for new mothers for whom sex is the last thing on their minds. I was shocked by Brizendine statement that "New mothers lose an average of seven hundred hours of sleep in the first year postpartum" (105). While this only works out to 2 hours a night, that is a lot! I wrote "holy hell!" in the margin there :)

It is amazing how long things can have an effect on people. On page 111, Brizendine writes "college-age adults who had low maternal care in childhood showed hyperactive brain responses to stress." I understand that we are affected by stuff for our whole lives, but sometimes it is shocking to find out exactly what. I learned in my Families in poverty class last summer that my eating habits from 14 years ago when we pretty much just ate what was available still have an effect on my metabilism and cravings! That just doesn't seem fair!

I loved the inclusion of grandmothers in this chapter, because my grandma has been such a big influence on my life. My mom had a lot of issues when I was little, and my grandma has pretty much had to pick up the pieces and try to help me through it all. I also loved the statement that a nurturing substitute mom is "enough to break the cycle [...] allowing the girl to privide attentive nurturing to her own children" (112).

The part about working moms and how women need to stick together and help each other out was also interesting and so true. With as much stuff as working mothers have to deal with, and that it really takes their brains months to get back to normal, there should be more time for maternity leave. Something like postpartum leave. Women (and men) need time to adjust to one of the most life-changing events they will ever go through.