Making Sense of Pregnancy: What Experts Want you To Know About Your Body
Have you been surprised by what we do and don't know about pregnancy and birth today? If you are pregnant, or have been in the past, this show helps you understand what's happening (or has happened) to our bodies--both the short term and long term effects of this transformation. We explore the boundaries of our scientific grasp on the wildly complex processes of pregnancy and birth.
After my complicated pregnancies, I went looking for answers and have interviewed hundreds of experts about women's health in this transition.
Every Tuesday you'll hear:
- Scientists at the cutting edge who are trying to uncover how pregnancy and birth work and what happens when they don't work
- Information you could use to better understand your own body in pregnancy
- .A better sense of the limits of your responsibility for what's happening inside your body
- Listen to hear what you won't find on a blogpost or a book off the shelf.
Making Sense of Pregnancy: What Experts Want you To Know About Your Body
It's not "Mommy Brain"-How Hormones during Pregnancy Prepare the Brain for Parenting: A Conversation with Dr. Laura Pritschet
The brain fog and forgetfulness that may accompany pregnancy and postpartum is almost always described negatively as "mommy brain"--but this phenomenal brain plasticity needs a rebrand.
What's actually happening is that the brain, like almost every other organ in the body, is adapting to the dramatic state of pregnancy. Some changes are transitory in the brain, as they are in the body. Some are more permanent.
Going forward, let's be impressed by our ability to neurologically prepare for the new world we are creating with our bodies.
Today's guest has done research on this very issue: the impact of hormones during pregnancy on the brain. By combining imaging technology, neuroendocrinology and neuroscience, she examines how sex hormones impact human brain function in pregnancy.
Dr. Pritschet's paper on hormones and the brain during pregnancy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-024-01741-0
Want to participate in this work: https://wbhi.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/docs/Flyers/Maternal%20Brain%20Project/Maternal%20Brain%20Project%20Flyer%20.pdf