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Saturday, August 18, 2018

Research Shows Having Children Transforms a Woman’s Brain, Making Her More Empathetic, Understanding


By John Stonestreet
Life News

Are men and women that different? The answer assumed by much of our culture is, “no.” But any woman who’s had a baby knows better.

The idea, driven into our culture by the forces of the sexual revolution, that men and women are basically the same with very few minor, external differences is now largely taken for granted. What I call the “gender revisionist” movement is at full steam. Some parents are now even attempting to raise their babies as “theybies,” which means not “assigning” a male or female gender to their children until they’re old enough to choose it for themselves.

The problem with the new gender fad is that science keeps reminding us that men and women are profoundly different. And that we should be thankful for this.

A recent essay in the Boston Globe highlighted just how visible this difference is at the neurological level. Using modern imaging technology, researchers can peer inside the brains of expectant and new mothers, and they’ve witnessed the unique and life-altering changes that occur.

This remarkable new “discovery” comes as no surprise to women who have experienced pregnancy. Chelsea Conaboy, for example, confessed in the Globe article that her tendency to be a worry-wart ramped up after having her son.

Of course, for some women, these changes can be extreme and lead to depression, and require treatment. But for the vast majority, the motherhood metamorphosis is healthy and essential. It helps mold women, as Conaboy explains, into “fiercely protective, motivated” caregivers, “focused on…baby’s survival and long-term well-being.”

And we’re now discovering that what’s at the root of this transformation is a radical restructuring of the brain that occurs in nearly all women when they become mothers.

To call motherhood a “major event” for the mother is the understatement of the century. But University of Rennes researcher Jodi Pawluski clarifies that it’s also a “major event” for the brain.

A 2016 paper published in “Nature” details how brain imaging has revealed dramatic changes in the volume of gray matter in new mothers’ brains. These changes are concentrated in regions involved in social interaction and “theory of mind,” which is the mental ability to “put yourself in someone else’s shoes.” In other words, the brains of new mothers literally reconfigure themselves for empathy and understanding.



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