July 10, 2023

Baby Brain: is it real? with Dr Sarah McKay

Baby Brain: is it real? with Dr Sarah McKay
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Baby Brain: is it real? with Dr Sarah McKay
Baby Brain: is it real? with Dr Sarah McKay
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Season 9 Psychology & Neuroscience Women's Health And Wellbeing

Around 85% of women will become a mother and most agree that pregnancy and parenthood are experiences that profoundly change us physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually. Sadly though, mothers, minds and brains are mostly absent from popular pregnancy books and social media posts unless of course there is a discussion about what can go terribly wrong: baby blues, postnatal depression and of course the dreaded baby brain.Today, Dr. Sarah joins Cass to chat about the upside of pregnancy and parenting on your brain. And research is very clear... Having a baby improves a mother's memory. It makes her smarter, more empathetic, intuitive, and socially savvy. 
Dr. Sarah McKay is an Oxford University educated neuroscientist. She is one of Australia's most well-known brain science commentators and authors. She wrote The Neuroscience of Health, Hormones and Happiness, and recently she has turned her attention to baby brain. Her latest book is called Baby Brain, the Surprising Neuroscience of How Pregnancy and Motherhood Sculpt Our Brains and Change Our Minds for the Better.
In this episode we explore:

  • the amazing neurological shifts that happen when we care for babies
  • how mental load and emotional labor of motherhood can impact attention and memory abilities
  • the importance of considering women's health in medical research and the surge of interest in the neurobiology of pregnancy and menopause. 

You can get yourself a copy of Dr Sarah McKay's books here. Follow her on instagram here.
Connect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com 
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Transcript
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A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am

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your host, Castune. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and

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mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita

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Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring,

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intelligent people who are experts in their field and who

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have something of value to share that will help you

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feel less crappy and more happy. Around eighty five percent

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of women will become a mother, and most agree that

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pregnancy and parenthood are experiences that profoundly change us physically, psychologically,

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socially and spiritually. Sadly, though, mothers, minds and brains are

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mostly absent from popular pregnancy books and social media posts, unless,

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of course, there is a discussion about what can go

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terribly wrong, baby blues, depression, and of course, the dreaded

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baby brain. Doctor Sarah Mackay is an Oxford University educated neuroscientist.

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She's one of Australia's most well known brain science commentators

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and authors. You may remember she wrote the women's Brain book,

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The Neuroscience of Health, Hormones and Happiness, and recently she

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has turned her attention to baby brain. Her latest book

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is called baby brain, the surprising neuroscience of how pregnancy

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and motherhood sculpt our brains and change our minds for

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the better. Today, Doctor Sarah joins me to chat about

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the upside of pregnancy and parenting on your brain. She

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tells me that the conclusion is very clear. Having a

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baby improves a mother's memory. It makes her smarter, more empathetic, intuitive,

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and socially savvy. This is all music to my ears.

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I know you are going to love this conversation with

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doctor Sarah. Doctor Sarah Mackay, we to crappy to have you.

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Oh, thank you for inviting me to chat.

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I couldn't wait to talk to you when I heard

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about your latest project, which is your book all about

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baby Brain, because I've been talking to people about the

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brain lately. We've been talking about dementia and all of this.

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Now baby brain. Any woman who has had a baby

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will a test that it is a very real thing.

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The forgetfulness, the absent mindedness which seems to for many

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of us last, way, way way past after we've had

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the baby. Is it a real thing? What is actually

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happening in women's brains when they are pregnant or having

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a baby.

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I'll start off with a controversial statement. Mother nature never

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intended mothers to become stupid. Oh yeah, there will not

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be any particularly evolutionary adaptive benefit for us to become

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cognitively impaired. So let me lay that, lay that out

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from the beginning. Let's define baby brain. You've kind of

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done that in terms of feeling foggy, forgetful, not being

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able to kind of complete cognive tasks, et cetera. And

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when we survey women who are pregnant an early motherhood,

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about eighty percent of them say, yes, that's me. I

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was in the twenty percent. I never experienced baby brain,

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but nor did I know it was a phenomenon. I've

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never heard of it, so I had no expectation that

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it was something I would experience. And bearing in mind

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I'm also a neuroscientist, so the first sort of time

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I heard it, I just dismissed it outright, kind of

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knowing what I know about the brain, I just couldn't

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like see what the benefit would be. And if we

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kind of look at our current biological states, there's always

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useful to look at kind of our evolutionary history how

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we got here. So here's the thing. We've got eighty

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percent of women saying they experience this. When we bring

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these women into the research lab and conduct a battery

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of cognitive tests, so we test, We test memory, We

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test memory for numbers, for words, We test, you know,

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can you navigate your way through this maze? Can you

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rotate this object in your mind's eye. We kind of

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submit women to the battery of tests, and they're in

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the research labor. It's their call, come collected. They haven't

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got their toddlers accompanying them, their babies accompanying them. We

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don't find any evidence the cognitive wine and that is

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really good news. Let me just state that mother nature

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didn't intend women to become stupid when they had babies,

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nor do we detect any evidence for that in the

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research lab. The one time. We do sometimes detect and

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some women and some studies, but not in all women

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in all studies. Sometimes in the third trimester of pregnancy,

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a few studies have found that women might score a

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point or so less on say a test of remembering

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this list of numbers that type of memory task. However,

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there is a study that has gone in and looks

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specifically at the third trimester of pregnancy and found cognitive enhancement. Wow,

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we test women for what we might call ecologically relevan

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and items. So you know, what are you doing the

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third trimester of your first pregnancy thinking about all things baby?

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So let's see if women can remember baby items instead

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of just a list of random numbers, and women's cognition

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is actually enhanced and that third trimester of pregnancy. So

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therein lies the kind of the paradox. Women are saying

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they're experiencing what they're calling baby brain, but we're not

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picking any cognitive decline up, which is good news in

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the research lab. So what's what's kind of going on?

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Why are the subjective experiences and the objective measurements not

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matching up?

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That is the question.

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Yeah, that is the question. So Luckily there's plenty of

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neuroscientists and other researchers that have kind of gone and

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interrogated this, And certainly that was what I was interested

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in because didn't happen to me. I kind of carried

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that bias into writing this book. And I'm happy to

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state that so one research study from Melbourne, from Monash

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University has gone and looked at this kind of idea

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of broad umbrella wellbeing, let's just use that, and has

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found that women who report feeling stressed, overwhelmed, socially unsupported,

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perhaps have anxiety depression, low well being are much more

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likely to say I have baby brain. Even when we

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present them with their test results and say, hey, look,

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your scores are fine, those women say, but I'm experiencing

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baby brain. So well being perhaps plays a part in

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your kind of perception of self. Within that, there's this

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other idea, and most women, modern day women are familiar

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with this phrase, the mental load of motherhood or the

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emotional labor of motherhood. And if we think about all

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of the things that women have to do, our memory

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depends on our attention, so what information we can take

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in and what we filter out. And we do have

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a tendency to talk about women being supermums, which says

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society because if a super mum does it all, no

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one needs to help. And if she's trying to do

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it all, so she's trying to keep up with her

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to do listener, emails and all the things she did

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prior to baby, and then her brain has been changed

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to hone in and focus attention on this new little

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baby that's in her arms or the impending arrival of

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this little baby. She forgets one thing, she blames herself.

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I will just blame my brain for that one thing

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instead of thinking, well, maybe I just kind of can't

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do it all. And the problem is, this is my

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perspective on this, is that women have been fed usually

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prior to puberty. That when we have a female body

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with its reproductive capacity and you add in a brain,

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that absolutely equals cognitive decline and emotional instability. And so

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what I think baby brains are not a neurological issue

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at all. Baby brain is a social issue. And we're

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just using this phrase to kind of internalize feeling overwhelmed

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and it kind of suits everyone. Right, She's just got

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baby brain. There's nothing that can be done, when really

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what the issue is is the inability to cope with

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the mental load of all of the things combined with

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what has happened during pregnancy, which is when our brains

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have rewired and reorganized to focus in on the baby.

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That's so interesting, And are there other things I guess

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going on as well? As you were talking, I was thinking, well,

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you know, and sometimes we experience in some there and

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our bodies are uncomfortable, and all of these other factors

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that can have an effect on memory or cognition. Well,

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I mean, the tests are not finding a problem with memory.

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So let's be clear about that. We are not forgetful.

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We just think we're forgetful. Or if we forget one thing,

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we think, oh, well, because you know I'm a mother,

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now you know that's synonymous with cognitive decline. So I

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have forgotten the one thing of the hundreds of things

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I meant to remember to do every day, and so

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we default back to that cultural stereotype. We've absorbed that

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quite negative into stereotype, and so we've kind of been

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led to believe that that pregnancy and motherhood are around

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cognitive deficits. What mother nature intended was cognitive flexibility and

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reorganization and reprioritization. And that's what happens is our attention

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is focused towards the baby and keeping the baby alive,

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and add on top of that a bit of sleep

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deprivation and all of the other things. It's not a

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neurological issue here, it's kind of an issue overload.

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It's another product of the patriarchy baby brain.

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Yeah, we've been duped there. We have and I think,

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what's interesting, And I'm not trying to beg myself up here.

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But I had no expectation. I've not heard of. It

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wasn't part of my expectation of pregnancy or motherhood. I

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experienced other things that made Tresten's journey. That transition into

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motherhood it's never easy, no matter you know how well

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supported you may be or how well and healthy you

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may be. There were still parts of it that I

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really really struggled with. My babies were fine, said, the

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babies are fine. They were easy. It was figuring out

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this new identity, this new person I had become, and

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I was not expecting that. I mean again, the word

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matrices wasn't really part of our lexicon back when I've

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got teenage sons now so and this is what I'm

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trying to do as have a new conversation about This

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is how our brain does change. Pregnancy prepares our minds

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for motherhood. A sculpts our social brain networks. A sculpts

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empathy networks, theory of mine networks, even auditory networks, so

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that we can we're kind of in the sensitive period

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and early motherhood to learn to respond to the social

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cues of a baby, and what are the social cues

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of a baby? They can't talk, they can't use their

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words to tell us what they need and want. They

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cry and they're cuge, so we're drawn towards their cuteness,

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their little chubby cheeks, and you kind of rit squen

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is them and eat them all up. But they also cry,

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which is dreadful. Thankfully, they're cute and they're crying and

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encourages us to pick them up and comfort them. And

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they're the cues that we have to learn to decode.

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And our brains have kind of gone into the sort

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of sensitive developmental phase almost, in which we engage with

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that baby and learn what to do to look after it.

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Yeah, that is really interesting. And you just use the

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word matrescence, and that's a term that I am hearing

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more and more recently. And you're right, it wasn't kind

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of around when I had my baby. She's seventeen now.

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It's really interesting to have a better understanding about that,

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isn't it. We talk about adolescence and we know that

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there are changes that go on in our brains during

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adolescens And what you're saying is that there is equally

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a change in our brains and our bodies during matrescence.

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Yep, yes, adolescence and matrices. They're both sort of physiological shifts,

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social shafth you know, everything sort of shifts, and we've

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got neurological shifts there as well. So when young people

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are going through puberty and then adolescence, you know, their

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brains are kind of transition through puberty and respond to

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hormones in the same way their bodies do, and they

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become very very sensitive, particularly to reading social cues. You know,

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if you move away from focusing on your family to

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your friends, and your brain is really really sensitive to

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social experiences, but also to sort of higher order executive

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cognitive experiences like learning, judgment and reason and higher order thinking.

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It's a good thing that they're at high school at

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that point in time. And what we see as parts

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of the cortex that are sort of responsible for those

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skills becoming slightly thinner, And that sounds a bit like

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brain wasting away, but in neuroplasticity terms, what we often

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see is sort of streamlining of the brain. It becomes

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more efficient and flexible, and that's reflected and pruning and

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tuning of connections. See that kind of tracking alongside the

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mastery and development of skills. So we see adolescents and

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made tressence is the same we see we see thinning

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of cortex in the same regions that become more sensitive

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as we kind of gain mastery of empathy and what

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does this baby need or does this baby want tuning

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into their social cues, and we see again thinning of cortex.

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And this is primarily during pregnancy. So when baby your eyes,

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we're kind of ready to go. And we see that

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in all other mammalian mothers as well. We're not unique,

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but we would see for example, in sheep, their their

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primary source of means of communication with their newborn lamb

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as smell, and so the old factory circuits become very

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very sensitive to smell, so that can recognize their lamb

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amongst a herd of sheep. Interesting an animal it has

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to like go and hunt as like a predator and

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needs to sort of feed its babies. That the other

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the prey that it catches, becomes far more efficient at

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hunting and becomes is able to recognize movements and kind

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of pounce quicker, so it becomes better at doing at

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that skill. Little animals that need to sort of scurry

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through the forest and find the hidden nuts and seeds

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and take them back and eat them so they can

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feed their young. They become better at spatial navigation. So

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we see and all mammalian mothers improvement and enhancement of

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ecologically relevant skills, and humans are the same. We see

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enhancement and improvement of ecologically relevant skills. And interestingly, it's

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our social brain that changes. And it's not just to

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tune into the baby. What else do we need. What's

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the greatest sort of rest and the greatest opportunity for

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a new mum. It's a social support network.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Yeah, so her brain is incredibly vulnerable to the requirement

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for social support around her. So mother nature didn't intend

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us to parent alone. I meant to be parenting in

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a group with other alow parents around us us, whether

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that be mothers or sisters or partners, and they kind

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of help us learn to care for the baby too.

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Yeah. So one thing I just remembered while you were

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talking was, even before we get into this kind of

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baby brain or conversation about what happens in women's brains,

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is just how I was fascinated about how women's brains

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have actually been excluded from brain research, just like so

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many other things. Right, studies, large scale studies have been

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done on male brains or just on brains in generally

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with no distinction between males and females. Can we talk?

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Can we talk about that?

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I even saw a bit of a stoush is always

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a good stoush on Twitter today where there was a

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definition of women being non men. They're actually lists three

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to find women and call them non It's like we'll

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just fill a non male space. Women have been seen

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as quite a niche for some time, and I think

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women's health is certainly no longer niche because we're not

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a niche.

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A niche not a niche.

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No, nor is women's health a niche. So the exclusion

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of the female from health and medical research kind of

279
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has a long history, and part of that, let's just say,

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the kind of the end result of that has been

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that we have far less information about women's health and

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a lot of treatments and procedures and recognition of signs

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and symptoms, etc. Based on the male as the standard,

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and if women pitch up with slightly different sides or

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symptoms or re quire slightly different treatments often than not

286
00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:33.480
as evidence based as they are for males. How did

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00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:35.840
we get there? Some of that was simply due to

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00:16:36.679 --> 00:16:40.919
just scientists never really kind of considering that sex as

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a biological variable of importance, and you know, that might

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00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:45.600
be a well, that's great because you know, we've kind

291
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of got equality, so it doesn't matter with a sex.

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You know, sex doesn't matter, so let's just treat everyone

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as equal. But obviously that doesn't always work out. For

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a long time, only males were included because they were

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we were doing research of young healthy males and universe,

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and they were the students who volunteered. Often women were

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purposefully excluded because they may have been say they we're

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testing a drug that could potentially harm a fetus, so

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we better not include any woman who could potentially feel

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pregnant because we don't know the negative outcomes. And you know,

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the thilidamide scandal scared people off from including young fertile

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00:17:21.319 --> 00:17:23.440
women and that so that was kind of done for

303
00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:27.519
a good intention but has had a negative consequence. We

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kind of look at the data up until sort of

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like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, seventeen. If we looked, just

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as neuroscience research data. Around twenty percent of studies that

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state to the biological sex of the animal or human

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included are done exclusively on males. We don't know about

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the rest, and about five percent of done exclusively on females.

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So there's definitely a mismatch there. Some of that comes

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about because females were often excluded because if we were

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looking at something that could be influenced by hormone, perhaps

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we didn't want the added variable and of immenstrual cycle

314
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and fluctuating hormones. Now that's not let's exclude women because

315
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of their pesky cycles. It's like, let's just reduce that

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variable down just to ensure that doesn't complicate our analysis.

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So sometimes there were good intentions and good reasons, but

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they've kind of it has all kind of added up

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to not necessarily the greatest consequences. And I think the

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good news story is that we are now starting to

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realize how important it is to include sex is a

322
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biological variable. It's often mandated if you're writing a research paper,

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if you're looking for a research grant, and if you're

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not including that, you've got to have a good reason

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why and I look back to all of the years

326
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I've spent in the research lab, and I can't remember,

327
00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:45.839
like I could open up my sort of I've got

328
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my PhD and honors thesis and stuff up there. I

329
00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:52.119
don't think I if I recorded whether I was studying

330
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a male or a female rat or ferrital mouse. I

331
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was working in spinal cord injury and brain development. I

332
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never did it in an out is based on the sex.

333
00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:05.119
It was never included in my analysis. And that wasn't

334
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:08.400
because I was trying to exclude females. It's because I

335
00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.599
was studying the brain and it didn't seem relevant to

336
00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:13.759
worry about whether it was a male or a female

337
00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:19.039
spinal cord. So you know, there's perhaps sometimes got intentions,

338
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sometimes just blindness to this being an issue. And now

339
00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:26.279
we're starting to see that change. And I think the

340
00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:28.279
other really cool thing that is happening. And again this

341
00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.640
is just one of my little pit berries as my

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generation of women people. Someone said to me earlier today,

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must be very, very unusual to be a female in neuroscience,

344
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which could not be further from the truth, because neuroscience

345
00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:43.559
is more like the medical health psychological sciences. There is

346
00:19:43.599 --> 00:19:47.039
always more women than men, particularly in undergraduate and graduate

347
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levels and universities. You just see the women kind of

348
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trickle office. They can't have babies and rise up the ranks.

349
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There's always going to be more men in those situations.

350
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But what we're seeing is my generation of women Gen

351
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X coming through, and we're now heading up the research labs.

352
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We're the ones asking the questions to get the research funds.

353
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And I think it's almost within the last ten years,

354
00:20:09.359 --> 00:20:12.559
I think it's almost that my generation has turned around

355
00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:16.640
and gone, we don't know anything about the neurobiology of pregnancy, Well,

356
00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:18.680
what does happen to our brains when we take the pill?

357
00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:22.119
What does happen as we transition through menopause. We've started

358
00:20:22.160 --> 00:20:25.160
asking questions that matter for us based on our experiences,

359
00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:28.240
ones that perhaps never occurred to men. But women are

360
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now in the position to ask, not just to ask

361
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the questions, but answer them. And so it's sort of

362
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seeing this huge surge and suddenly everyone is going, hey,

363
00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:42.720
you know what, that's actually intellectually a very interesting question.

364
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So it's not just women now in neuroscience who are

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interested in this data, because men, like of men some credit,

366
00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:54.079
it's these are intellectually interesting questions. So I had a

367
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one of the scientists I spoke to in the book,

368
00:20:57.359 --> 00:21:00.839
Anne Marie de Lange. She does this kind of big analysis,

369
00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:04.640
Like they have these biobanks of sort of thousands of

370
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:07.640
people's brain scans and information, and they use kind of

371
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big data analysis to kind of go in and tease

372
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out all the information. And you know, you need to

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be smart, but you also need to be able to

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code to do that kind of thing. There's a massive

375
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probably ninety percent of people in that space of men.

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So she went to a research conference recently with data

377
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that she was presenting on middle aged women. So women

378
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in their forties and fifties. Can we detect whether those

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women had a prior pregnancy solely by looking at their

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brain scan? Oh? Wow, now turns out we can. But

381
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she was like, I'm going to go to a big

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data conference and talk about motherhood and brains. Are the

383
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men going to be interested? She says they were absolutely fascinated.

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She said, credit to them. She went in thinking they

385
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would be dismissed. She's so fascinated, And I think we're

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just we're seeing a real paradigm shift, and we're also

387
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seeing you know, this kind of shift towards Haytes. These

388
00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:58.759
are actually really interesting questions to ask.

389
00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:00.839
And they are and not a minute too soon. It's

390
00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:01.599
very exciting.

391
00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:04.960
It is a really exciting it's a really exciting time.

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I mean, the first paper to come out looking at

393
00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:10.519
how brains change across the menopause was June twenty twenty one,

394
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:12.880
so it's just having it Sick and World day. So

395
00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:15.640
it's super new. This is a super super new field.

396
00:22:16.160 --> 00:22:18.480
CAPS should have got here earlier. We didn't. Whatever, we're

397
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here now and watching.

398
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I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the

399
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benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are

400
00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:33.039
enjoying the show, please be sure to like and subscribe

401
00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:35.400
so that you get notified when you aps drop and

402
00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:37.920
head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen

403
00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:46.880
and leave us a rating and review. Let's talk about

404
00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:48.000
maternal instinct.

405
00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:49.839
Yeah, that's a good one.

406
00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:53.799
Yeah, so this is this a real biological phoenomenon.

407
00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.039
First of all, let's just say this scientists. Don't you

408
00:22:56.279 --> 00:22:58.680
like to use the word instinct when it comes to humans,

409
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:01.759
particularly because it kind of implies that all of our

410
00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:05.799
behaviors roll out in this sort of identical way, and

411
00:23:05.839 --> 00:23:09.079
the response to a single stimulus, you know, and there's

412
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:12.160
no and there's no variation. And that's certainly not the case.

413
00:23:12.759 --> 00:23:15.319
There was a paper that came out when paper an

414
00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:17.079
article in the New York Times that came out when

415
00:23:17.119 --> 00:23:20.440
I was writing my book that said mother instinct is

416
00:23:20.519 --> 00:23:23.000
a myth men created. So they were basically saying, what's

417
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:26.759
the patriarchy? So you know, I was as a maternal instinct,

418
00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:29.880
mother nature or is it the patriarchy? Well, of course

419
00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:32.839
the reality somewhere in the messy middle. Yeah, it always

420
00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:36.079
as I'm not sitting on the fence. Brains receive information

421
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:39.839
from our bottom up biological bodies, the outside and world,

422
00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:42.039
everything we see and hear and do, and the people

423
00:23:42.039 --> 00:23:44.839
we interact with, and we're constantly making meaning of that

424
00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:48.200
based on our prior experiences and the meaning making in

425
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.759
the moment. So it's not either or it's all. And

426
00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:56.839
so I was really interested in We know that non

427
00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:02.079
human mammalian mothers show certain stereotypical behaviors that emerge when

428
00:24:02.119 --> 00:24:05.480
their babies are born, Like I talked about sheep, as

429
00:24:05.480 --> 00:24:07.799
soon as their baby's born, they lick and clean their

430
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:10.640
little lamb and mean to recognize the smell of their lamb.

431
00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:13.759
So that's a very stereotypical behavior. A dolphin would have

432
00:24:13.799 --> 00:24:17.559
a slightly different behavioral profile to kind of keep the

433
00:24:17.559 --> 00:24:21.079
baby dolphin from roaming through the pod. They're going to

434
00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:24.119
have very different behaviors. And a little baby gorilla being

435
00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:26.240
born and how it's mother is going to be constantly

436
00:24:26.279 --> 00:24:28.119
carrying it and it's fur and ever letting it go.

437
00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:30.160
The baby gorilla is not going to be roaming around,

438
00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:34.279
So there are behaviors that emerge. What about humans, I,

439
00:24:34.599 --> 00:24:37.599
as part of my book, surveyed all the people that

440
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:39.640
sort of follow my newsletter and got hundreds and hundreds

441
00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:43.640
of amazing responses and said to those people, what does

442
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:47.319
maternal instinct mean to you? And that was fascinating because

443
00:24:47.359 --> 00:24:51.920
some people said to them, maternal instinct meant that desire

444
00:24:51.960 --> 00:24:54.240
to have a baby before you were ever pregnant. So

445
00:24:54.279 --> 00:24:57.119
a woman might say I never had children because I

446
00:24:57.160 --> 00:24:59.920
had no maternal instinct. So that's kind of one me

447
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:03.279
we make that other women would be like, the moment

448
00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:05.440
I held my baby in my arms, I felt I'd

449
00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:09.440
known him forever, And she took that to mean maternal

450
00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:11.839
instinct for her. But then you'll get other women who

451
00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:13.839
hold the baby in their arms and they're like, oh shit,

452
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:17.519
what have I done? And they have no They just

453
00:25:17.559 --> 00:25:20.400
feel ambivalence, and then of course the guilt that comes

454
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.359
with that, maybe I didn't have maternal instinct. And then

455
00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:28.559
you'll have others say to their maternal instinct is that knowing?

456
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:31.160
You know? And I think about this, If your child

457
00:25:31.240 --> 00:25:33.559
comes home from school in the second you see their face,

458
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:36.799
you just know in it and you know instinctively that

459
00:25:36.920 --> 00:25:39.960
something's wrong, but you don't know what. And people take

460
00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:42.599
that that's almost like you've learned your child so well.

461
00:25:43.119 --> 00:25:46.960
You just know that kind of knowing that you gain

462
00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:50.160
from years of experience of being with this other human.

463
00:25:50.759 --> 00:25:54.599
So there's lots of ways we define maternal instinct, and

464
00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:57.880
I think that that's really interesting, and there are many

465
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:02.400
ways to parent. Who ever, everywhere around the world, when

466
00:26:02.440 --> 00:26:05.599
a baby cries, we all respond in the same way.

467
00:26:05.720 --> 00:26:07.519
We go towards it and we pick it up and

468
00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:11.319
we hold it and we shush it. We do and

469
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:14.599
is that learned? Is that the did the patriarchy tell

470
00:26:14.640 --> 00:26:17.319
us to do that? Or is there something in us

471
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:19.880
and all adults not necessarily just the birth mother and

472
00:26:20.279 --> 00:26:25.400
all adults that encourages us towards babies, and certainly brain

473
00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:29.079
scans that have been done or you know, brain recordings

474
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:32.839
and response to babies crying or in response to cute faces.

475
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:37.920
We are driven towards them more so than away or

476
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:42.279
not responding. So there's something in there. And I you know,

477
00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:46.200
if I was to talk about the maternal instinct and

478
00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:51.279
the kind of experience that I link that phrase up

479
00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:54.799
to is with my firstborn son when he had his

480
00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:56.799
heel pricked in the hospital for that. You know, the

481
00:26:56.839 --> 00:26:59.240
blood tests they do to test they haven't got some metabolics.

482
00:27:00.119 --> 00:27:02.880
I mean, I probably not the person with the most

483
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:05.039
empathy on the planet. Actually it's just say that, but

484
00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:07.720
I had practiced empathy. You know, Dad had a saw happen,

485
00:27:07.799 --> 00:27:10.160
he had his place, and I was like, oh, poor dad.

486
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:12.839
You know, my husband has an achy back. I'm probably

487
00:27:12.839 --> 00:27:14.960
not very sympathetic. I'm like, just put the wheat bag

488
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:17.640
in the microwave and take a pands out of me.

489
00:27:19.319 --> 00:27:22.680
I tried to be empathic, right, But when my oldest

490
00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:25.839
son had his heel precked in the hospital and he screamed,

491
00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:28.079
and I felt like my soul had been torn from

492
00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:31.519
my body, and I just felt like I wanted to

493
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.279
grab him and just push the nurse away. And I

494
00:27:35.319 --> 00:27:39.759
had never felt this feeling from the what felt like

495
00:27:39.799 --> 00:27:43.400
the depths of my soul in response to another person's

496
00:27:43.759 --> 00:27:49.599
pain before. And I remember afterwards crying and crying thinking,

497
00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:52.480
I'm his mother, I'm his mother, And as that was

498
00:27:52.519 --> 00:27:56.960
that instinct, I don't know. It was certainly an experience

499
00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:00.480
that took my breath away. I had never felt that

500
00:28:00.680 --> 00:28:05.000
before about another person. And I mean, my brain had

501
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:08.119
been primed to respond to my baby's cry and to

502
00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:12.279
keep my baby safe, and oxytocin as a result of

503
00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:16.640
labor delivery and breastfeeding as a pro social hormone. It

504
00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:18.799
just doesn't make you feel woman fuzzy. It makes you

505
00:28:18.799 --> 00:28:22.200
feel fiercely protective and angry towards anyone who might arm you.

506
00:28:22.799 --> 00:28:26.400
Could we call that instinct? There was certainly a biological

507
00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:29.119
response involved. Yeah, so you know, there's lots of meaning

508
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:31.599
we can make of that word, I think, and it's

509
00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:34.319
kind of fun not to try and attribute it to

510
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:37.079
biology or attribute it to the patriarchis. And that's silly

511
00:28:37.559 --> 00:28:41.079
to recognize that we have these words that we use

512
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:43.839
to describe our experiences and make meaning of them.

513
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:47.480
Yeah, that is true. I guess the question would be,

514
00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:51.759
so if I would an adoptive parent or would a

515
00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:54.599
father have the same kind of reaction.

516
00:28:55.079 --> 00:28:58.599
Yeah, and we don't. I mean, I'm not going to

517
00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:01.000
say we don't think so. Add All adults respond to

518
00:29:01.559 --> 00:29:05.319
crying babies, but they haven't gone through the pregnancy such

519
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:08.359
that their brains have been reorganized and rewide to respond

520
00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:12.000
and to learn to respond to make the learning curve

521
00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:14.920
not so steep. So any adult can learn to parent

522
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.519
by experience. And that's pretty clear. And we see we

523
00:29:18.599 --> 00:29:22.519
haven't done studies yet of non birth mother's brains, but

524
00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:26.000
we've done studies looking at father's brains and they're actually

525
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:28.799
really interesting, and they were used. The first study that

526
00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.759
was looked at using brain scans of women before and

527
00:29:31.799 --> 00:29:34.480
after their first pregnancy, had the fathers, so these were

528
00:29:34.519 --> 00:29:37.200
heterosexual couples. They had the male partners of these women

529
00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:41.480
as a control group, and in comparison to the women's brains,

530
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:44.160
they didn't change at all, whereas the women's brains showed

531
00:29:44.359 --> 00:29:47.680
four percent volume reduction in these regions of cortex, which

532
00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:51.160
is an extraordinarily large amount. There's more than anything else

533
00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:53.000
that you ever see in the life span, except for

534
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.960
during childhood and adolescent development, extraordinary change. And in comparison,

535
00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:00.599
the men's brains didn't change at all. When the researchers

536
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:02.480
went back in and looked only at the men and

537
00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:04.920
then gathered some more men ins there was more data

538
00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:08.039
to look at, they found that actually some men's brains

539
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:10.400
like didn't expand slightly, but there was sort of a

540
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:13.039
volume increase one way and other means there was no change.

541
00:30:13.039 --> 00:30:15.240
In other mens, there was a volume decrease and all

542
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:18.720
kind of averaged out to zero, but there was variation

543
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:22.359
within those within those men. And it turns out that

544
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:25.400
the degree of change you've seen and the father's brain

545
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:28.720
is dose dependent and it depends on how much heat

546
00:30:28.839 --> 00:30:31.680
is engaged with baby care. So it's kind of the

547
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:35.400
experience of looking after the baby, and fathers of course

548
00:30:35.880 --> 00:30:38.960
can be their conception only bugger off and never be

549
00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:42.440
seen again, or they could be the primary caregiver. So

550
00:30:42.680 --> 00:30:45.400
you know, there's this enormous variation and the degree of

551
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:48.640
engagement that they have with the baby and the changes

552
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:52.319
in their brain reflect that, and the same way that

553
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:55.720
change would be reflected if you were learning kind of

554
00:30:55.759 --> 00:30:58.880
any new task. The really interesting thing about the fathers

555
00:30:58.920 --> 00:31:02.720
though the men. Some of the men's find it very

556
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:05.839
confronting to learn that the more engaged they are with

557
00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:08.960
the baby, the more the testosterone levels drop. That doesn't

558
00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:11.319
sort of happen during pregnancy, but once the baby comes along,

559
00:31:12.079 --> 00:31:16.359
baby care lowess testosterone levels. And I think that's in

560
00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:19.480
one of mother Nature's secret tracks, because if you've got

561
00:31:19.480 --> 00:31:23.880
a high tea guy, high testosterone guy, he's not doing

562
00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:26.160
much baby care, he might be tempted to kind of

563
00:31:26.200 --> 00:31:30.079
wander off, maybe make more babies somewhere else. Mother nature

564
00:31:30.119 --> 00:31:33.640
lowers the cystosterone because we're all we're all biologically responding

565
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:37.200
to each other within a family unit. Yeah, his testosterone

566
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:41.359
levels drop, he's more likely to stay put and more

567
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:44.319
likely to help raise that child. So I think there's

568
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:47.000
Mother Nature's secret little trek to kind of keep dad's

569
00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:50.480
at home with babies, not just mothers.

570
00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:52.839
It's fascinating. I mean, I've always had this theory, and

571
00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:55.079
it's probably a complete fallacy, but I always thought that

572
00:31:55.240 --> 00:31:57.759
because my daughter came out of my body looking like

573
00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:01.720
exactly like her father, and I was furious. I was

574
00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:03.839
just like, after all I've been through, that's how you

575
00:32:03.880 --> 00:32:06.759
were paying me. You look spinning a bitch off him,

576
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:08.960
And she did for the first twelve months, and then

577
00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:11.079
now she looks a lot more like me. But I

578
00:32:11.079 --> 00:32:13.039
always thought it's that a trick of nature to make

579
00:32:13.039 --> 00:32:15.640
sure that the dad kind of stays in bonds. They

580
00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:16.680
make the babies look back.

581
00:32:17.000 --> 00:32:20.720
I think they need to engage in the bonding. And

582
00:32:21.799 --> 00:32:25.119
exactly because what we see is this has been replicated

583
00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:28.319
both and there's a couple of species of a little

584
00:32:28.519 --> 00:32:31.480
cute little monkey where the father's the primary care giver.

585
00:32:31.599 --> 00:32:34.160
As soon as the baby's born, the baby climbs on

586
00:32:34.200 --> 00:32:38.119
to dad and only gets given back to mum to feed,

587
00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:40.319
and then goes straight back to dad. And the fathers

588
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:42.519
kind of lose weight as the baby gets better and

589
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:45.559
back because they're constantly carrying this child around until it's

590
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:47.319
like a growing monkey, and then off it kind of

591
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:49.880
goes off to its own little family group. And in

592
00:32:49.960 --> 00:32:53.240
those as well, we see the testosterone drop and the fathers,

593
00:32:53.559 --> 00:32:57.000
but oxytocinally will was kind of stay stay high. So

594
00:32:57.000 --> 00:32:59.200
so studies of me and have looked at the oxytocinally

595
00:32:59.240 --> 00:33:01.559
wles kind of during their partner's pregnancy and then when

596
00:33:01.559 --> 00:33:04.519
they're really engaged in baby care, and we're not seeing

597
00:33:04.559 --> 00:33:08.160
a massive kind of change in oxytocin level, but what

598
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:10.799
we see is the change in testosterone. So it might

599
00:33:10.839 --> 00:33:14.000
be the relationship between oxytocin the kind of ratio of

600
00:33:14.039 --> 00:33:19.240
oxytocin and testosterone. It's really hard to say, here's a hormone,

601
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:23.039
here's a level, here's a predicted behavior. But when we

602
00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:26.119
kind of start piecing all of these different changes in

603
00:33:26.160 --> 00:33:29.559
hormones together in relationships, and you know, how do women

604
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:33.400
react when men's testosterone drops and they're at home and

605
00:33:33.400 --> 00:33:35.599
they're helping care for the baby. You've got a much

606
00:33:35.640 --> 00:33:38.720
happier mum and a happier family. When you've got a

607
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:40.960
high tea dad who is an engaged in baby care

608
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:43.000
and off he kind of goes, you've got a mother

609
00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:46.039
who's less well supported and happy. And that just sounds

610
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:50.319
like some kind of awfully stereotypical story. But we've got

611
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:52.920
data to toback all of that up. So I think

612
00:33:53.160 --> 00:33:56.319
that the kind of the overarching message here is all

613
00:33:56.359 --> 00:34:02.440
adults biology changes when we engage with babies, When we

614
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:05.519
engage with infants because we weren't meant to parents alone,

615
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:09.280
and humans are ollow parents. We are mammals that share

616
00:34:09.920 --> 00:34:13.400
baby care. And in the absence of helpers, what happens

617
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:15.199
to moms. What happens to a mum who's lift all

618
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:17.440
by herself to look after a baby with no social support,

619
00:34:17.880 --> 00:34:22.360
it's pretty inevitable consequence. Depression, loneliness. It's not good.

620
00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:24.119
No exactly intended.

621
00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:26.239
We were meant to be all by ourselves doing this.

622
00:34:26.519 --> 00:34:28.079
And speaking of that, I was going to ask, you

623
00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:30.320
are there. I mean I used to work a lot

624
00:34:30.360 --> 00:34:33.920
with women in my psychology practice, with pregnant women and

625
00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:38.760
women post natally. I remember doing some training specifically around

626
00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:41.320
that and kind of being told or being taught that

627
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:44.480
postnatal depression really wasn't because people used to have it's

628
00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:46.920
the hormones. It's the hormones. It's the hormones. And we

629
00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:49.360
were kind of taught that, well, it's not really actually

630
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:52.199
the hormones. It's that they are lacking sleep, they're unsupported,

631
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:54.760
you know, they're stress. There's all of these lifestyle factors

632
00:34:54.800 --> 00:34:57.239
that would make anybody depressed. Hormones or not.

633
00:34:57.519 --> 00:35:00.480
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like, yeah, when when they add

634
00:35:00.559 --> 00:35:02.440
up you've got baby brain. When they add up, you've

635
00:35:02.480 --> 00:35:06.119
got issues, and it may manifest different ways. I think

636
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.400
that's interesting because the hormones, you know, you go through

637
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:12.519
this enormous withdrawal of all of these, you know, especially Easter,

638
00:35:12.559 --> 00:35:15.360
in all these pregnancy hormones, and so you've got that

639
00:35:15.480 --> 00:35:18.320
vulnerability early on. And that's when we do see if

640
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:21.679
women are specifically vulnera you might see postpartum psychosis, which

641
00:35:21.719 --> 00:35:23.760
we know is almost directly related to the withdrawal of

642
00:35:23.800 --> 00:35:28.079
hormones and baby blues. But if you look at longitudinal

643
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:31.760
studies of motherhood, we see rates of post at lantenatal depression.

644
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:35.760
Rates of depression go up, you know, between having a

645
00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:37.519
newborn to having a one year old, to having a

646
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:40.320
two year old to having a three year old. It's

647
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:42.920
you're not more likely in the first couple of weeks,

648
00:35:42.920 --> 00:35:44.800
you're actually more likely a couple of years later. And

649
00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:49.719
that's not hormones, no exactly, that's the mental load of motherhood. Yeah,

650
00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:53.159
that's just being worn down over time. And what's the

651
00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:56.199
greatest respector for that. It's lack of social support. Yes,

652
00:35:56.320 --> 00:35:59.039
so I head I've got if you read my book

653
00:35:59.079 --> 00:36:01.320
and you read through the chapter on kind of alloparenting

654
00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:04.079
shared support, there's a couple of women in there who

655
00:36:04.079 --> 00:36:06.599
are expats, I assume by the sound of it. I

656
00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:09.840
think maybe in some we like Singapore because it was anonymous,

657
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.840
but they had maids and nannies and night nurses who

658
00:36:14.960 --> 00:36:19.440
helped them, and they had wonderful experiences of first time

659
00:36:19.480 --> 00:36:22.920
motherhood because they had so much super support around them.

660
00:36:22.960 --> 00:36:24.559
And they're like, at how anyone could have done it

661
00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:27.679
without having these mother helpers.

662
00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:29.840
I mean, so many women do, though, don't they.

663
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:34.119
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. There is something interesting though,

664
00:36:34.519 --> 00:36:36.559
because we talk a lot about depression, but there was

665
00:36:36.599 --> 00:36:40.320
some interesting research I uncovered more around hypervigilance and anxiety

666
00:36:40.760 --> 00:36:43.840
and particularly with your first baby. And maybe this is

667
00:36:43.880 --> 00:36:48.119
my maternal instinct, he'll preck of my son's story, is

668
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:52.239
that we go into a state of hypervigilance, which again

669
00:36:52.360 --> 00:36:55.119
it's almost like we've been primed to be really on

670
00:36:55.679 --> 00:36:58.599
because we haven't yet learned how to look after a baby,

671
00:36:58.760 --> 00:37:01.039
so we have to be super alert it to any

672
00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:04.840
kind of danger, and that often manifests and this very

673
00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:10.519
very common catastrophic intrusive thoughts of babies falling out windows,

674
00:37:10.519 --> 00:37:13.400
and downstairs and out of car seats and out of cars.

675
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:16.719
They are really really common intrusive thoughts. Not a lot

676
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:19.000
of people talk about them, and they kind of track

677
00:37:19.079 --> 00:37:25.360
alongside hyper vigilance, and that in a healthy situation sort

678
00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:28.000
of tails off by about sort of seven weeks post

679
00:37:28.039 --> 00:37:31.800
andatally if it doesn't or it starts to kind of

680
00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:36.280
increase instead of decrease. That's a real strong predictor of

681
00:37:36.679 --> 00:37:41.760
mental health issues, especially anxiety and though and that's much

682
00:37:41.800 --> 00:37:43.920
more common with the first baby than a second baby.

683
00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:47.559
We don't have the same intrusive thoughts of babies falling

684
00:37:47.599 --> 00:37:50.639
out windows and downstairs. And I so clearly remember that

685
00:37:50.679 --> 00:37:52.960
with my first son, I was convinced he was going

686
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:55.199
to fall out the window even if he wasn't in

687
00:37:55.239 --> 00:37:55.599
a room.

688
00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:57.400
No. I heard that a lot too.

689
00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:00.400
We don't talk about that. And there's you know, like

690
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:04.440
our brains make meaning, our bodies in a hypervigilance state,

691
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:07.719
our nervous systems dialed up and on to kind of

692
00:38:08.239 --> 00:38:11.679
learn to keep this baby alive. But the meaning we

693
00:38:11.800 --> 00:38:14.400
kind of make of that is something bad's about to happen,

694
00:38:14.440 --> 00:38:16.360
Something bad's about to happen, something terrible is going to

695
00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:19.639
happen to my baby, and so our brain's almost kind

696
00:38:19.679 --> 00:38:22.559
of fill in a story around the Europe that that

697
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:26.519
kind of nervous system hypervigilance, and I don't think we

698
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:28.000
talk about that enough at all.

699
00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:30.159
No, you're right, and we don't. And the thing that

700
00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:34.519
I heard from my clients was that that then sometimes

701
00:38:35.400 --> 00:38:38.880
extends on to what if I were to throw the

702
00:38:38.920 --> 00:38:41.119
baby like almost like this, what if I were to

703
00:38:41.159 --> 00:38:43.599
do something terrible to the baby, and then I must

704
00:38:43.639 --> 00:38:45.599
be a terrible mother for me to have had this thought.

705
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:47.719
It must mean that I want to do that when

706
00:38:47.719 --> 00:38:50.119
I absolutely don't want to do that, and then not

707
00:38:50.159 --> 00:38:51.800
even being game to be in the room with their

708
00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:54.639
baby because they're so terrified of what they might do

709
00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:56.119
because of these intestive thoughts.

710
00:38:56.239 --> 00:38:59.800
Absolutely, yeah, that's very common. And I think we've only

711
00:38:59.800 --> 00:39:02.320
just have started to sort of study that and kind

712
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:05.920
of now we've sort of moved away from flogging this

713
00:39:06.039 --> 00:39:08.320
idea of let's look at women's brains to find out

714
00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:12.400
where their memories are gone. Let's just wave away from

715
00:39:12.679 --> 00:39:14.559
this of all you've got is a hammer, all you

716
00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:17.360
look for is a nail. Let's kind of broaden the

717
00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:21.159
conversation out broaden the research out to what are all

718
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:23.679
of the ways in which, you know, we see these

719
00:39:23.679 --> 00:39:27.559
neurological shifts, and what are the adaptive benefits of these

720
00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:30.199
And let's focus on like telling a sort of a

721
00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:34.639
strengths based story instead of a deficit story. So even

722
00:39:34.679 --> 00:39:39.519
this post natal anxiety or hypervigilance, I mean, there is

723
00:39:39.519 --> 00:39:42.639
an adaptive benefit for that with your first baby. That's

724
00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:45.360
part of the learning, learning process. And if we can

725
00:39:45.400 --> 00:39:49.800
start talking about that instead of thinking, gosh, she's worrying

726
00:39:49.800 --> 00:39:52.679
about dropping a baby out the window. And that's what

727
00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:55.119
I'm hoping to do, is to move away from it.

728
00:39:55.199 --> 00:39:57.920
These are these are all neurological deficits and dysfunctions and

729
00:39:57.960 --> 00:40:03.320
instabilities to brains are becoming more flexible and efficient and

730
00:40:03.440 --> 00:40:05.559
sort of primes to learn. And a lot of the

731
00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:09.599
responses that we are experiencing are really you know this

732
00:40:10.440 --> 00:40:14.159
millions of years of evolution enabling us to keep these

733
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:15.480
new little humans alive.

734
00:40:15.719 --> 00:40:20.199
Yeah, you mentioned before about the recent research, well the

735
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:24.920
first study I think you said on women's brains and menopause,

736
00:40:25.440 --> 00:40:27.320
which was a couple of years ago. Can you tell

737
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:28.679
me what was in that? So, like, what do we

738
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:32.679
know about brains and manopause. I'm fascinated because this is

739
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:34.079
relevant to me at the moment.

740
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:40.039
Yeah. Well, funnily enough, so during adolescence and may tread

741
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:43.480
since we see thinning of gray matter and parts of

742
00:40:43.480 --> 00:40:47.440
the brain that are showing skill development across from kind

743
00:40:47.480 --> 00:40:50.559
of pre period to post menopause. We actually see that

744
00:40:50.559 --> 00:40:53.760
gray matter bounce back. So I don't know what that

745
00:40:53.800 --> 00:40:56.960
means we're losing skills, but I mean because we're downloading wisdom,

746
00:40:57.360 --> 00:40:59.639
as we don't have evidence we're downloading wisdom, but I

747
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:02.159
like to attribute it to that. So what we see

748
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:06.159
is the brain adapts and responds to our physiology. So essentially,

749
00:41:06.360 --> 00:41:09.960
your eggs are running out, you're producing this estrogen your ovaries.

750
00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:13.119
There's a roller coaster of estrogen going on for a while,

751
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:17.760
because when you don't release enough estrogen, the brain doesn't

752
00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:20.239
receive much estrogen, so shouts back down to the ovaries

753
00:41:20.559 --> 00:41:23.639
relate smaller next month and the overs release a whole heap,

754
00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:25.880
and then the brain goes not that much. So there's

755
00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:29.159
this kind of roller coaster and that eventually trickles out,

756
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:33.000
and then sort of tracking alongside that, we see the

757
00:41:33.039 --> 00:41:36.559
brain sort of shift and respond so we see changes

758
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:40.159
in gray matter, changes in white matter organization, kind of

759
00:41:40.159 --> 00:41:42.800
the opposite of what we see in adolescents and matrescence.

760
00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:49.800
We see neurons becoming less efficient at metabolizing glucose, which

761
00:41:49.800 --> 00:41:51.880
we see throughout our whole bodies, which is why we're

762
00:41:51.880 --> 00:41:55.760
more vulnerable to developing diabetes. But by the same token,

763
00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:59.960
we actually see changes in energy metabolism in terms of

764
00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:03.760
mitochondria and atp So we see lots of changes, and

765
00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:06.239
we see lots of adaptations, both at a neural level

766
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:08.639
and at a structural level. I think that's really interesting.

767
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:11.159
The brain's adapting, and then once you kind of get

768
00:42:11.199 --> 00:42:14.760
beyond your final period, beyond the menopause, then it's just

769
00:42:14.800 --> 00:42:18.000
sort of flat. It sort of settles out. So it's

770
00:42:18.039 --> 00:42:20.800
just this sort of shift in this transition and adaptation.

771
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:26.000
We understand a little bit about the neurobiology of thermoregulation

772
00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:29.639
and why we get hot flashes. That's a neurological issue

773
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:34.559
that's caused by the estrogens resetting the lower and upper

774
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.039
levels of the thermostat in our brain, so the top

775
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:39.920
level goes down, so you get a tiny increase in

776
00:42:40.199 --> 00:42:43.320
core body temperature that prior to menopause would have been

777
00:42:43.320 --> 00:42:47.800
within the normal range. It kind of trips the level

778
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:52.280
of thermostat and your body, you know, your hypothalamus sends

779
00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:55.039
a message to your body panic stations, we're really hot

780
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:59.360
in here, and so you get this enormous cooling physiological response.

781
00:43:00.039 --> 00:43:02.239
You're asleep, your body will sweat a bit, and then

782
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:05.519
if that doesn't work, your brain will go, well, we

783
00:43:05.559 --> 00:43:07.440
need to wake up and we need to behave in

784
00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:09.440
a way that will call us down. So it seems

785
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:11.320
a surge of adrenaline through your body to make you

786
00:43:11.360 --> 00:43:14.199
wake up in a big panic. How interesting because something

787
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:16.320
terrible is going on, and the same way as what

788
00:43:16.360 --> 00:43:19.519
we see when someone with sleep at near you know,

789
00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:22.119
wakes up because they can't breathe, and the body wakes

790
00:43:22.159 --> 00:43:24.760
them up so they can start breathing again. And when

791
00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:26.679
we put estrogen back and if you use in winnipouse

792
00:43:26.679 --> 00:43:29.760
hormone therapy, then we you know, reset the thermostat and

793
00:43:29.800 --> 00:43:33.760
that's why that's an effective treatment. There are other non

794
00:43:33.880 --> 00:43:36.119
hormonal treatments that we're working on because we kind of

795
00:43:36.199 --> 00:43:40.440
understand a little bit more about the particular neurons and

796
00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:43.440
the particular signaling molecules. They use in the hypothalamus. So

797
00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:46.920
there are now specific neurological treatments for hot flashes for

798
00:43:46.960 --> 00:43:49.679
women who can't take hormone. Interesting, And then I think

799
00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:55.280
also really tied in with that thermoregulation dysfunction as it

800
00:43:55.960 --> 00:43:58.920
disrupts sleep architecture, even if you're not being thrown awake

801
00:43:59.400 --> 00:44:04.119
in a hot, wet because sleep and that healthy sleep

802
00:44:04.239 --> 00:44:07.800
architecture we move through during the night is tied to

803
00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:11.119
our core body temperature. And if we've got thermodysregulation, we

804
00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:15.599
have sleep architecture disruption. So even if you think you've

805
00:44:15.639 --> 00:44:18.960
been asleep, you still wake up feeling terrible. Yeah, and

806
00:44:19.400 --> 00:44:21.199
if you had one night of that, a week, a month,

807
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:24.119
a year of that, well you're probably going to have

808
00:44:24.159 --> 00:44:26.800
a foggy brain. You might find it harder to control

809
00:44:26.840 --> 00:44:29.920
your moods and emotions. You know, you kind of tip

810
00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:32.760
the domino, And we're kind of starting to get to

811
00:44:32.840 --> 00:44:38.320
grips worth the neurobiology of menopause. Yeah, we've learning about

812
00:44:38.360 --> 00:44:41.639
neurobiology pregnancy, and you know, we've kind of had a

813
00:44:41.639 --> 00:44:44.960
few years more years understanding the neurobiology of puberty and

814
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:48.719
brains going through puberty. So we're you know, we're sort

815
00:44:48.719 --> 00:44:51.840
of starting to unpack unpack all of this. But like

816
00:44:51.920 --> 00:44:54.239
that minopause study that's only two years old, so.

817
00:44:54.360 --> 00:44:58.239
Yeah, wow, a lot to be done. It had really

818
00:44:59.039 --> 00:45:01.280
never occurred to me before I open up your book

819
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:05.119
how little we knew about this topic up until so recently,

820
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:09.920
that we have never really explored women's brains and you

821
00:45:09.960 --> 00:45:12.079
know what happens during women's lives.

822
00:45:12.440 --> 00:45:16.239
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And I think I'm not crediting

823
00:45:16.239 --> 00:45:19.000
myself with this. So I stand on the shoulders of giants.

824
00:45:19.480 --> 00:45:23.760
And there are some amazing researchers out there and mostly women,

825
00:45:23.880 --> 00:45:27.079
mostly female neuroscientists, and the space where it's driving this

826
00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:31.000
field forward, and credit must go to them for all

827
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:33.599
of the hard work. I know how hard it is

828
00:45:33.639 --> 00:45:37.000
to do good science, and they're the ones asking the

829
00:45:37.039 --> 00:45:38.679
meaningful questions. They are the ones that are doing the

830
00:45:38.679 --> 00:45:41.599
work to get the answers, and their names are all

831
00:45:41.599 --> 00:45:44.840
in the book, so you know, my thanks really goes

832
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:45.199
to them.

833
00:45:45.480 --> 00:45:49.000
And I think the takeaway really for listeners and our

834
00:45:49.039 --> 00:45:52.400
audience is really women, you know, maybe twenty five to

835
00:45:53.199 --> 00:45:57.559
fifty five and beyond, And the whole idea of taking

836
00:45:57.559 --> 00:46:02.920
a strengths focus your state meant that women's nature doesn't

837
00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:05.639
mean for mothers to be stupid. I think that is

838
00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:08.559
just a brilliant takeaway for you to focus on the

839
00:46:08.599 --> 00:46:11.400
strength as opposed to the deficit that we've been kind

840
00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:13.199
of fed and believing all this time.

841
00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:15.320
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And if we can all start having

842
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:19.519
conversations thinking about the positive adaptation and the ways our

843
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:24.039
brain brains respond in positive ways, mother nature doesn't want

844
00:46:24.079 --> 00:46:27.159
us to be stupid, no intention there, So move away

845
00:46:27.159 --> 00:46:30.679
from a always looking for the deficit and assuming that

846
00:46:30.679 --> 00:46:33.199
that exists and thinking about the upsides.

847
00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:39.159
I find it all so interesting. This conversation has been fascinating, Sarah,

848
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:42.559
So thank you for your time today. Where can people Obviously,

849
00:46:42.599 --> 00:46:45.239
your book Baby Brain is out now.

850
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:48.840
Yeah, so it's out in print in Australia, so if

851
00:46:48.880 --> 00:46:50.360
you want to buy a print copy and you're not

852
00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:53.079
in Australia, you have to ship it. But you can

853
00:46:53.480 --> 00:46:57.840
buy it on Kindle ebook available globally, and so is

854
00:46:57.880 --> 00:47:00.639
the audiobook. However, I'm not reading the audio book. We

855
00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:05.000
have a professional voice artist who much better than I am,

856
00:47:05.559 --> 00:47:08.440
so you can you can consume it that way. Perfect

857
00:47:08.639 --> 00:47:10.519
the link if you go to my website dot Sarah

858
00:47:10.599 --> 00:47:13.559
Mackay dot com. Just google Sarah McKay and euro Scientists

859
00:47:13.679 --> 00:47:15.360
or something like that, and you'll end up on the

860
00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:20.119
website and there's links to access the book wherever you

861
00:47:20.199 --> 00:47:20.800
are in the world.

862
00:47:21.039 --> 00:47:22.639
I'll put all of those links in the show notes

863
00:47:22.679 --> 00:47:24.639
as well. Thank you so much. This has been amazing.

864
00:47:24.639 --> 00:47:25.599
I appreciate your time.

865
00:47:26.039 --> 00:47:28.320
Oh look, it's self indulgent because I just get to

866
00:47:28.360 --> 00:47:30.719
talk about things that i've played really honest to someone

867
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:34.320
who'll just listen. I've got a captive audience.

868
00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:43.440
You do. Doctor Sarah's latest book, Baby Brain, is available

869
00:47:43.480 --> 00:47:45.880
now in all bookstores. You can find out more about

870
00:47:45.920 --> 00:47:49.480
her work at her website, Doctor sarahmckay dot com. I'll

871
00:47:49.480 --> 00:47:53.199
put that link in the show notes. If you enjoy

872
00:47:53.239 --> 00:47:56.360
the show, as always, please recommend it to your friends,

873
00:47:56.400 --> 00:47:59.199
Give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, give

874
00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:02.559
us a follow on Apple or Spotify. Come and connect

875
00:48:02.599 --> 00:48:05.079
with me on Instagram, I am cast done underscore XO

876
00:48:05.280 --> 00:48:08.679
on Instagram and TikTok cast done dot XO on Facebook,

877
00:48:08.760 --> 00:48:10.119
or of course, you can connect with me at my

878
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:13.800
website Cast done dot com. I can't wait to catch

879
00:48:13.800 --> 00:48:18.280
you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy