Summary Of Chelsea Conaboy S Mother Brain

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The first time I tried to answer the question What does it mean to become a mother. it involved pumping two or so ounces of breast milk that would become just one of the two bottles I needed to feed my infant at day care the following day. I sat in that closet and pumped and pumped, and when the milk didn’t come, I sat in that closet and pumped some more, until I was so frustrated that my back hurt and my breasts felt like they were going to explode. And still the milk wouldn’t come. I was desperate. I wanted to know what it means to become a mother, but I couldn’t get an answer. Still unable to produce enough milk for my baby, I went back to work. I needed more information, but more information was not coming. I was four months postpartum—the time of most intense lactation—and this still wasn’t enough milk. How long would this take. -> What does it mean to become a mother. For many women, the answer is scary because it means examining how they are different from nonmothers, and from a male perspective, how much less interesting they are. #2 This is not a parenting book. I have two kids, and I have written a book describing my experience as a new parent. I am not a parenting expert. #3 This book will not give you advice on how to raise your child or how to be a parent. It will instead explore the biological changes and lived experience that makes parenthood so profound. #4 The idea that we are the dedicated mother bird, guided by a maternal instinct that has been perfected through the ages, is bullshit. We are not naturally caring for our children. We are not born with the ability to do so.

Health and science journalist Chelsea Conaboy explodes the concept of “maternal instinct” and tells a new story about what it means to become a parent. Conaboy expected things to change with the birth of her child. What she didn’t expect was how different she would feel. But she would soon discover what was behind this: her changing brain. Though Conaboy was prepared for the endless dirty diapers, the sleepless nights, and the joy of holding her newborn, she did not anticipate this shift in self, as deep as it was disorienting. Mother Brain is a groundbreaking exploration of the parental brain that untangles insidious myths from complicated realities. New parents undergo major structural and functional brain changes, driven by hormones and the deluge of stimuli a baby provides. These neurobiological changes help all parents—birthing or otherwise—adapt in those intense first days and prepare for a long period of learning how to meet their child’s needs. Pregnancy produces such significant changes in brain anatomy that researchers can easily sort those who have had one from those who haven't. And all highly involved parents, no matter their path to parenthood, develop similar caregiving circuitry. Yet this emerging science, which provides key insights into the wide-ranging experience of parenthood, from its larger role in shaping human nature to the intensity of our individual emotions, is mostly absent from the public conversation about parenthood. The story that exists in the science today is far more meaningful than the idea that mothers spring into being by instinct. Weaving the latest neuroscience and social psychology together with new reporting, Conaboy reveals unexpected upsides, generations of scientific neglect, and a powerful new narrative of parenthood.

Before Chelsea Conaboy gave birth to her first child, she anticipated the joy of holding her newborn son, the endless dirty nappies and the sleepless nights. What she didn't expect was how different she would feel. It wasn't simply the extraordinary demands of this new role, but a shift in self - as deep as it was disorienting. In truth, something was changing: her brain. New parents undergo major brain changes, driven by hormones and the deluge of stimuli a baby provides. These neurobiological changes help all parents - birthing or otherwise - adapt in those intense first days and prepare for a long period of learning how to meet their child's needs. Yet this science is mostly absent from the public conversation about parenthood. Conaboy delves into the neuroscience to reveal unexpected upsides, generations of scientific neglect and a powerful new narrative of parenthood.

“An urgent look at emotional labor....Hackman’s words reveal the agency of women is still possible while the power of care, empathy, and love in action can lead us to the best in our humanity.” ― Eve Rodsky, New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play From Journalist Rose Hackman, a deeply-researched foray into the invisible, uncompensated work women perform every day—and a profound call to action. A stranger insists you “smile more,” even as you navigate a high-stress environment or grating commute. A mother is expected to oversee every last detail of domestic life. A nurse works on the front line, worried about her own health, but has to put on a brave face for her patients. A young professional is denied promotion for being deemed abrasive instead of placating her boss. Nearly every day, we find ourselves forced to edit our emotions to accommodate and elevate the emotions of others. Too many of us are asked to perform this exhausting, draining work at no extra cost, especially if we’re women or people of color. Emotional labor is essential to our society and economy, but it’s so often invisible. In this groundbreaking, journalistic deep dive, Rose Hackman shares the stories of hundreds of women, tracing the history of this kind of work and exposing common manifestations of the phenomenon. But Hackman doesn’t simply diagnose a problem—she empowers us to combat this insidious force and forge pathways for radical evolution, justice, and change. Drawing on years of research and hundreds of interviews, you’ll learn: · How emotional labor pervades our workplaces, from the bustling food service industry to the halls of corporate America · How race, gender, and class unequally shape the load we carry · Strategies for leveling the imbalances that contaminate our relationships, social circles, and households · Empowering tools to stop anyone from gaslighting you into thinking the work you are doing is not real work Emotional labor is real, but it no longer has to be our burden alone. By recognizing its value and insisting on its shared responsibility, we can set ourselves free and forge a path to a world where empathy, love, and caregiving claim their rightful power.

Esteemed psychologist Daphne de Marneffe examines women’s desire to care for children in an updated reissue of her “fascinating analysis that’s a welcome addition to the dialogues about motherhood” (Publishers Weekly). If a century ago it was women’s sexual desires that were unspeakable, today it is the female desire to mother that has become taboo. One hundred years of Freud and feminism have liberated women to acknowledge and explore their sexual selves, as well as their public and personal ambitions. What has remained inhibited is women’s thinking about motherhood. Maternal Desire is the first book to treat women’s desire to mother as a legitimate focus of intellectual inquiry and personal exploration. Shedding new light on old debates, Daphne de Marneffe provides an emotional road map for mothers who work and mothers who are at home. De Marneffe both explores the enjoyment and anxieties of motherhood and offers mothers in all situations valuable ways to think through their self-doubts and connect to their capacity for pleasure. Drawing on a rich tradition of writers, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Carol Gilligan, and Susan Faludi, as well as her experience as a psychologist and mother of three, de Marneffe illuminates how we express our desire to care for children. By treating maternal desire as a central feature of women’s identity—rather than as an inconvenient or slightly embarrassing detail—we can look with fresh insight at controversial issues, such as childcare, fertility, abortion, and the role of fathers. An “absorbing look at the enormous personal pleasure that women derive from mothering….Maternal Desire is a stirring book that celebrates women’s love for their children and mothering while also supporting their interest in careers and other pursuits” (Booklist).

What role does oxytocin play in the many changes that occur during pregnancy and breastfeeding designed to make mothers better mothers? How does birth, breastfeeding, and skin-to-skin contact affect oxytocin release? How do birth interventions--epidurals, Cesarean sections, oxytocin infusions, and medications--impact oxytocin release? And how does oxytocin release (or lack of) impact the mother and baby? After many years of researching oxytocin, author, physician, and researcher Dr. Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg presents compelling scientific data that demonstrates the important role oxytocin plays in motherhood. In this book Dr. Uvnas-Moberg describes how oxytocin helps mothers access an inborn female competence that helps them transition to motherhood and give birth more easily, feel better after birth, breastfeed with fewer problems, and establish a good connection with their children. She also explains the impact oxytocin release has on infants--helping them become better at handling stressful situations and impacting their future health. This book provides scientific data to demonstrate that oxytocin plays an important role far beyond stimulation of uterine contractions during birth and milk ejection during breastfeeding, including the following: Oxytocin is a signaling substance in the brain that when released during birth, skin-to-skin contact, and breastfeeding induces important physiological and psychological adaptations in the mother and infant. The way we give birth, handle, feed, and interact with our infants may influence the release of oxytocin and the development of the both short-term and long-term oxytocin-linked effects in both mothers and infants. Medical interventions during birth may influence the release of oxytocin and the development of the oxytocin-linked effects. Anyone working with pregnant and breastfeeding mothers will find this book enlightening and thought-provoking. It will give you evidenced-based information to change practices to protect oxytocin release during birth and in the postpartum period and to better inform new mothers about the role oxytocin plays in pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding; the importance of natural birth, skin-to-skin contact, and breastfeeding; and the impact of birth interventions."

The Teacher and the Teenage Brain is essential reading for all teachers and students of education. This book offers a fascinating introduction to teenage brain development and shows how this knowledge has changed the way we understand young people. It provides a critical insight into strategies for improving relationships in the classroom and helping both adults and teenagers cope better with this stage of life. Dr John Coleman shows how teachers and students can contribute to healthy brain development. The book includes information about memory and learning, as well as guidance on motivation and the management of stress. Underpinned by his extensive work with schools, Dr Coleman offers advice on key topics including the importance of sleep, the social brain, moodiness, risk and risk-taking and the role of hormones. This book is extensively illustrated with examples from classrooms and interviews with teachers. It explicitly links research and practice to create a comprehensive, accessible guide to new knowledge about teenage brain development and its importance for education. Accompanied by a website providing resources for running workshops with teachers and parents, as well as an outline of a lesson plan for students, The Teacher and the Teenage Brain offers an innovative approach to the understanding of the teenage brain. This book represents an important contribution to teacher training and to the enhancement of learning in the classroom.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the acclaimed author of Like a Mother comes a reflection on the state of caregiving in America, and an exploration of mothering as a means of social change. The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital question: How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life? In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at what mothering is, and can be. A first-generation Filipino-American, Garbes shares the perspective of her family's complicated relationship to care work, placing mothering in a global context—the invisible economic engine that has been historically demanded of women of color. Garbes contends that while the labor of raising children is devalued in America, the act of mothering offers the radical potential to create a more equitable society. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level. Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.