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Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

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Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#51
I always wonder about claims like this from both sides. I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first two. And I know this is a touchy topic, but I am pro-choice yet find it a bit baffling that we ignore some of the science behind its effects on the brain and moods. Hormones are very powerful. If you are on either side of that fence, I think we can all agree that we want the woman to be well. I feel like writing off effects for political reasons does nothing but damage women (I think this is more U.S. than other countries.) Especially if we consider some women getting abortions are doing so for socio-economic reasons. If their brains are effected (they become depressed,) that is hurting their social standing even more. If we can identify that as a possible effect, then we can treat them.

A bit of a tangent, but it's something reading this prompted me to rant about.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#52
post #48

I am genuinely not trolling, just curious coz I'm new here: what does this have to do with software? Or does HackerNews cover more than just software? Genuine question, not rhetorical

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#53
post #48

I am genuinely not trolling, just curious coz I'm new here: what does this have to do with software? Or does HackerNews cover more than just software? Genuine question, not rhetorical

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be slightly careful here about separating out the findings from the speculation. The study[1] looked at what changed in the women's brains, the regions in which it changed, and then tested to see which areas 'lit up' when viewing a picture of their own child vs. other children. In addition measurements were taken over time to see how permanent the changes were. The reasons for change and the actual/quantitative i…

FWIW my wife underwent a drastic personality change after giving birth, and I would definitely agree with this being one of the symptoms. But just one data point of course.

As a counterpoint, my wife gave birth to our daughter a couple of years ago and I saw no noticeable personality change. She was perhaps more emotional at first but that seemed as much a result of sleep deprivation as the actual pregnancy and birth.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#55
Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep.

Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#56
Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep.

Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#57
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this is Hacker News, not the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's a community, and since it's acknowledged by the poster not to be a scientific observation, I'm not sure he needs corrected on it.

That's a fair point, and maybe I'm just demonstrating a personal bias for a particular type of discussion that isn't reflected on Hacker News. However, I didn't try to "correct" the grandparent commenter so much as show that while an acknowledgement of an anecdote is made in good faith, it doesn't take away from the overall impact on the audience. We may not be researchers peer reviewing the work of colleagues here,…

[deleted]

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#58

I always wonder about claims like this from both sides. I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first two. And I know this is a touchy topic, but I am pro-choice yet find it a bit baffling that we ignore some of the science behind its effects on th…

I've not actually seen anyone claiming that abortion has zero effect (though I assume you must have seen some such claim). What I have seen are denials that it causes long term depression, which is perfectly compatible with your points about pregnancy/miscarriage. But it's also the question that matters--if the comparison is miscarriage/giving birth, the question is whether it produces any excess psychological effects.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#59

I always wonder about claims like this from both sides. I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first two. And I know this is a touchy topic, but I am pro-choice yet find it a bit baffling that we ignore some of the science behind its effects on th…

> I see people claiming pregnancy alters a woman's brain, miscarriages can cause postpartum depression, but then see claims that abortions do not effect the brain at all. The third I find hard to believe given the first two.

The reason a miscarriage can cause depression while an abortion usually does not is because the former is against a women's will and the other her choice. I find that quite obvious to be honest.

Re: Pregnancy alters woman's brain 'for at least two years'

#60

Anecdotally I can say it has a large effect on the male brain too. The lack of sleep and time changes you. You get ruthless against time stealers and start seeing 6 hours as a nice long sleep. Full disclosure : I've had about 8hr sleep in 3 days,two sick kids...

Yep, 5 month old here, teething. Short term memory is impacted.
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